If It Quacks Like A Duck
by aLoggedInReader
Summary: Sam only wants some peace and quiet. Gabriel only wants for everyone to acknowledge that he is meant to be something more than a simple duck! A sort of companion-piece to Maknatuna's Duck Tales. Crack-Fic. Rated M for Gabriel's big mouth and language in general.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** To everyone who's also reading my other story 'Those Pesky Butterflies' no worries, I'm neither abandoning nor slowing down on that one... I just got the possibility to write this and... I couldn't help myself!**  
**

The idea of Cas and Dean being ducks came up in a conversation with my great friend Maknatuna, who is now writing a story about - you guessed it - Dean and Castiel as ducks.

She allowed me to write a sort of, kind of, companion-piece with Sam and Gabriel as ducks, though.

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity! Thank you, hon.

* * *

**1**

"Humans are strange," Gabriel mused while ruffling the feathers of the drake resting next to him.

"Uhu," Sam commented lazily, trying to ignore the smaller duck. The taller duck with the medium brown feathers already knew that the peace and quiet was over, however.

"Did you know that Anatidaephobia is the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you?" Gabriel stated seriously pecking the back of his partner's head slightly to get his full attention, "What rational species needs a word for that?"

In his nearly three years of life, Gabriel had travelled around a lot and had lived in a little pond next to a psychiatrist's office for a while. He had thought that the psychiatrist himself was quite crazy for regularly speaking to a duck, personally.

"Maybe they know that you are planning to overthrow them," Sam chuckled and brought one of his feet out from under his body to kick Gabriel, "I am trying to sleep, feather brain!"

The smaller duck quacked in faked outrage and stood up to go and find someone who would appreciate his presence. Knowing the little clearing they had decided to make their home at, he would be hard pressed to find someone like that, however.

Maybe it didn't help with making friends that Gabriel had a bit of a god-complex. He wasn't being priggish! He just knew he had been born to be something big! Well, not big in the body size department, obviously.

Meanwhile, Sam had been able to go back to resting, but of course he couldn't actually sleep anymore. Instead he thought about his brother Dean whom he had left behind when he had escaped from the farm they had been living at before. He had tried to get his brother to come along, but Dean could be very stubborn sometimes and he just hadn't wanted to leave their home.

In the first weeks Sam had thought about going back to the farm, but all that was forgotten once a crazy, nearly honey-colored drake had crash-landed into him. He hadn't been all too taken with the other duck at first, to be honest, but it wasn't like Gabriel had left him a choice. There just was no getting rid of the small duck once he had set his mind on something!

The big duck was brought back to the present by the insistent quacking of a very familiar voice that was still so far away that he could barely make out the words at first. After that he was quite sure that he must be mishearing, however.

"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!" Gabriel yelled excitedly, "It's followed me all on its own! Can I keep it? Can _we_ keep it?"

Of course, _all on its own_ meant that he was pushing the tiny kitten along with one of his wings.

"Gaaaaaaaaabe," Sam replied in as much of a whining tone as a duck could manage, "It's a cat! Cats eat ducks!"

At least big cats ate small ducks, or something.

"It's a completely different species!" the taller duck added reasonably after a moment of consideration. He was refusing to look at the kitten, because he just knew they would keep it the moment he got a good look.

"If your mother had been that hung up on the species issue, then where would you be today?" Gabriel retorted, keeping the tiny kitten close to himself, safely tucked under his wing.

"My father was not a goose, dammit!" Sam stated in an unnerved tone, but then made the mistake to look at the tiny mewling thing under Gabriel's wing. "Fine," he sighed.

"Oh, this is going to be great! We will teach him to love all birds and teach him to eat our enemies and we will show him how to swim and I'll cuddle him and love him and call him Jesse!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:** Thanks for the reviews, they make me very happy! If you want to continue to make me a happy little writer, you know what to do!**  
**

**Edit**: Yes, my beta wanted to put some time and energy into the crazy ducks! Thanks to Ghastly Eternity for the beta-work!

* * *

**2**

As it turned out – to Gabriel's great surprise – there was more to raising a tiny living being than just playing with it and cuddling it.

The golden-brown duck knew how far the Sun was from the Earth, both in kilometers and miles. He knew the chemical formula for water and how to ride a bicycle, in theory, of course. But he knew next to nothing about nurturing kittens, or any other babies of any species, really. Well, they were born tiny and grew up to be bigger, except maybe for fleas or amoebas.

Well, he knew some more practical things as well. For example, he knew that he loved Sam, even though his biological programming should have made him interested in females and not gigantic half-geese. And he knew that he had loved the little kitten irrationally since he had first seen it.

"It-," Sam started but was interrupted when Gabriel sent him a glare, "_Jesse_ is a kitten. He needs milk!"

"Damn, I left my wallet in my other pants," the honey-colored duck replied which only made his partner give him one of those looks that meant that he had no idea what Gabriel was talking about.

Okay, he had picked up a few very strange sayings in the time he had spent around humans. This particular one had been the favorite of a – ironically – pant-less man who had tried to regularly buy ice-cream from a vendor in a park Gabriel had lived at for a while.

"No money, otherwise I would go buy some in a shop," the drake explained to his bewildered partner.

"Of course, you would," Sam replied sarcastically.

He had learned what shops were when they had had an eerily similar conversation about bread. According to Gabriel shops or supermarkets were places where humans went in with a lot of money and came back out with a lot of things and no money. All in all, this had been one of the more plausible explanations for something Gabriel had given to Sam in all the time he had known him.

The smaller duck was looking at the tiny mewling kitten and decided that he needed to come up with a way to feed his family. That was what men did, after all. He might be small and have a feathery ass, but he was a man nevertheless! This still was new territory for the drake, since Sam was very capable of feeding himself. And if his partner would allow Gabriel to feed him, then it was the same things he generally ate, as well.

"Milk," Gabriel stated out loud, if only to remind himself about the task at hand, "Milk, milk, milk…"

Sam shook his medium-brown head and gave his partner a doubting look. This wasn't going anywhere, he could already see that and the kitten – Jesse – was hungry.

"There is a farm over there," Sam said casually pointing his beak into the right direction. He would not make the mistake to directly suggest that Gabriel should go there and try to find something suitable for Jesse. The other duck would only get into a discussion about the pros and contras of that course of action with him, but if he let Gabriel believe that he had come up with it on his own…

"There are animals that give milk on farms," the honey-colored duck concluded after a moment of intense consideration.

Gabriel stood up and took the warm cover of his feathers away from the kitten who started to shriek pretty much instantly. He then nudged the tiny baby with his beak until it got up and wobbled over to the other duck. "You watch the baby, I'll be back!"

Sam didn't get a chance to protest before his partner had already taken flight, so he was left with the crying kitten. With a resigned sigh he lowered himself down on Jesse. The baby shouldn't have to feel cold, at least.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's**** note: **Peeps, serious request: Please, review! I get it, people check out the first chapter just to see if they actually want to read the story, but if you've made it this far, just drop me a line and let me know what you think!**  
**

Thanks to Ghastly Eternity for the beta-work!

* * *

**3**

The farm was right next to the forest Sam and Gabriel lived in, so it didn't take the small drake long to get there. He was in high spirits and completely convinced that it couldn't be that hard to get some milk for his adopted son from some willing animal. He was a natural charmer, after all!

"Hello, beautiful!" he approached the first animal he knew gave milk he came across. The goat completely ignored him, however.

Gabriel remembered that Sammy had ignored the same greeting when they had first met as well, so he did the same he had back then… with little changes to accommodate the different species.

"You sure are one pretty lady," he stated in the duck-equivalent of a completely charming tone, "And what big teats you have!"

That got him the attention of the goat who was looking at him bewildered and then tapped her hoof against his beak none too gently when he winked at her. The goat probably never meant to really hurt him, but she was big and he was small, even for a duck.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" Gabriel wailed and ran in circles for a few moments before he dropped onto the straw, rubbing his wounded beak against his feathers, "Why did you do that?"

The goat looked at the drake as if he had gone completely insane. She had to admit that she was a tiny little bit intrigued by the animal, however. It wasn't every day that a honey-colored duck just walked up to her casually and started to hit on her. Well, it was the first time that any duck had hit on her, period.

"You were hitting on me first," the goat commented and stared at the small duck some more. Not only had the duck hit on her, he had also been very rude about it! She might be a goat, but she had her standards!

"I wasn't hitting on you! I have my half-goose boyfriend and our adopted kitten waiting for me at home!" Gabriel protested vehemently. He didn't quite understand why the goat burst into laughter at that, though.

"My, my. You really are something," the goat bleated before she calmed down a little, "Let's talk seriously. My name is Ellen, who are you? And what do you want?"

The honey-colored duck nodded once seriously.  
"My name is Gabriel and I very recently adopted a kitten called Jesse," he told the goat with pride swelled breast, "But you see, Jesse needs milk and both I and my goose-y boyfriend don't have the means to produce it for him since we're not mammals and I can't go buy some in a shop, because I lack the money."

That was a pretty good summary on the dilemma he was in.

"Money is not the only thing you are lacking," Ellen said with an amused snort.

"The money and the ability to make humans understand what I'm saying," the duck admitted after a short moment of consideration. Hey, if humans had been able to understand him he was quite sure he could have made lots of money in Hollywood. Too bad that humans were too stupid!

"I was talking about brains, but your version is good, too," the goat commented. She felt a little sorry for the small, crazy duck, though. "You can have some milk, but how did you think you would get it?"

Gabriel did not quite understand what the problem with that should be. "You are a goat. Goats give milk. So, give me the milk!"

"Did you just try to tell me how goats work?" Ellen asked disbelievingly, "Listen, shorty, you'd have to milk me, but you don't have fingers and that beak of yours is not getting anywhere near me!"

At that Gabriel let his body drop back to the straw, looking utterly wretched.

"But we need the milk! Kittens need milk and… Good Goose! He's going to die!" the drake quacked miserably, working himself up even more as he continued to contemplate the situation.

"Shut up!" the goat snapped after a few seconds and then gave him another, lighter, tap on the beak when he wouldn't stop panicking. "Okay, here's what we'll do. The human will come and milk me soon. You go and find something you can transport the milk with and I'll distract him for a while so you can steal some from the bucket!"

Gabriel nodded very seriously and went to put the plan into motion. Oh, how he loved plans! Too bad that this one didn't include any camouflage or explosives... but Sam didn't have to know that when he was going to tell him the story later on!


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note:** Okay, you guys are amazing! Thank you all so much for the great feedback! Have a quick update as a reward ;-)**  
**

Thanks to Ghastly Eternity for the beta-work!

* * *

**4**

"… And then the farmer ran back to the house, holding his stomach to prevent his guts from spilling all over the floor!" Gabriel finished his dramatic tale of how he had heroically secured the milk for their adopted son. Of course, in reality he had only waited for Ellen to bleat and trample around a little to distract the farmer while he had grabbed the old tin he had found and stolen some milk from the bucket. But why bore Sam with the truth when he could come up with something so much better?

The much bigger drake did his best to look impressed and awed, but a laugh escaped him at the end of the story.

"Anyway, with the human out of the way, Ellen says that we can just bring Jesse over so he can drink the milk directly next time," Gabriel finished, ignoring his partner's lack of seriousness over the bloody death of a fake human being. He would have never thought that Sam would be this unaffected by carnage and gore, but it was good to know for the time when Gabriel would get around to actually implement his plan for world domination. Really, he was just waiting for a moment when he was less busy. He'd show the humans and everyone else who was boss when he was finished with all the other things he was working on!

"I've been thinking," Sam changed the subject quickly before Gabriel could go back to describing the bloodbath he had totally caused at the farm, "Are you even sure that Jesse is a boy?"

As the brown duck had feared – or expected, really – he had gotten attached to the kitten in the time he had spent keeping the baby safe and warm, so he really wanted to know what gender their adopted baby was. It hadn't mattered so much as long as he had sort of assumed they would get rid of him – or her – again.

"Am I sure? Am I sure? Of course, I am sure!" Gabriel replied vigorously, "As sure as I am that your father was a goose!"

"My father was _not_ a goose!" Sam nearly yelled at his annoying partner, "I'm telling you for the last time. Nobody in my family is a goose or a half-goose. Not my father, not my mother, and not my brother!"

"You did not mention yourself there, Sammy," the honey-colored duck pointed out smugly.

Sam just quacked at Gabriel, outraged and went to collect some wet grass to clean the kitten up with. Jesse – luckily – could drink on his own, but he sure was a messy eater, so they'd have to somehow get the residual milk off him before it dried up and he needed to get away from the other duck for a while before he actually pecked him hard!

"Am I sure? Like I can't tell if you're male or female!" Gabriel muttered to himself as he walked up to the small kitten who was fed, content and sleepy. He sat down next to the kitten and extended his wing so the baby was protected from the cooling evening air.

The honey-colored duck just looked at the dozing kitten for a couple of moments longer and then very quickly rolled Jesse on his back. It didn't hurt to make sure, after all. Yes, definitely a boy. A rather displeased boy, as things were.

"What did you do now?" Sam asked in as much of a stern tone as he could manage around a mouthful of wet grass.

"Moi?" Gabriel asked, looking like a picture of perfect innocence. He had spent a part of one spring next to a school where the children had mandatory French lessons. He hadn't picked up many useful things, but that one word had stuck. What he liked best about the French was their bread, anyway.

The bigger duck just shook his head and went to clean the kitten up which did nothing to make the tiny thing squeal any less.

"He's like a squeaky-toy!" Gabriel commented as he watched his partner finish the improvised bath he had given the kitten.

"You say the strangest things," Sam replied with as much of a frown as any duck could ever manage. He had had lots of practice ever since he had met Gabriel, though.

"And you love it," the smaller duck shot back lovingly as he rubbed his head against his partner's neck.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed. You guys are awesome! To everyone who made it this far but hasn't left a review: Come on guys, don't you want to make this poor author happy so I keep updating quickly?**  
**

Thanks to Ghastly Eternity for the beta-work!

* * *

**5**

Night had fallen over the clearing and Sam and Gabriel had retired under the bush where they usually slept. The entrance was easy enough to access but still hidden from plain view and they had an emergency exit in case any predators showed up. Gabriel had insisted to decorate the place with candy wrappers he had collected next to the street by the edge of the forest and the paths that the hikers used. Sam had protested initially, but even he had to admit that the strange colorful collage his partner had managed to create looked nice.

The medium-brown drake was sleeping peacefully with his beak tucked back into one of his wings when he was suddenly awoken by a hissing noise coming from his left.

Sam looked over to Gabriel groggily, wondering what exactly had happened. The thought that something might be wrong with their adopted kitten helped him to be completely alert within a second, however.

"What do you think about some duck-loving?" Gabriel asked. If he had had any eyebrows he would have waggled them madly. The park he had lived at for a while had shown movies on a big screen out in the open during summer time and he had seen a man waggling his eyebrows like that in one of those. It had looked like a talent he would have liked to possess.

"Gabe, we have a baby now," Sam sighed, trying to be patient with his oh so stupid partner. "And you're sitting on him," he added after a moment of consideration. Yeah, they were so not going to do anything while Jesse was not only present, but also under one of them for warmth!

"Woe is me! It is true!" the golden-brown duck wailed in a moderately silent tone, though, "Babies totally destroy your sex-life!"

Sam groaned. This was just like Gabriel! First he wanted a baby, then he knew nothing about how to care for it and to top it off, he seriously hadn't even taken a second to consider how this was going to change their lives!

"You'll live! We haven't even had him for a day!" the taller duck hissed, "And where did you get that wisdom from, anyway?"

The honey-colored drake was quiet for a couple of moments which was a miracle in itself. Sam nearly thought he could go back to sleep when suddenly his partner said, "Paul."

"Huh?" the taller duck replied ineloquently. It was really hard to always come up with witty or even good things to answer back to the insane duck, however.

"I heard it from Paul," Gabriel elaborated without really explaining anything.

"Paul? Who's Paul?" Sam demanded. For duck's sake, if the smaller duck wanted to prove something, he should better come up with something, well, better!

"Oh you know. Paul. That guy that we know. That had a baby and had his sex-life ruined by it. He lives over there," Gabriel explained seriously as he pointed into the general direction of the entire forest with the wing Jesse wasn't sleeping under.

Sam just shook his head at his partner and didn't give him the satisfaction of getting a reply to the ridiculous story. He had already used his one free 'I give a flying duck about your bullshit story' when he had spoken about the epic slaughter of the farmer, earlier. Alright, Sam had been amused by that story, he had to admit, but he really just wanted to sleep now.

"Whatever, it's not like you won't be suffering," Gabriel pouted as well as a duck could pout. Oh, how the honey-colored duck wished he actually had lips to pout with. He had seen a lot of little kids get their way with a good pout when he had stayed at the petting zoo for a couple of days. Wasn't it just unfair that all the best expressions were reserved to humans? One more reason to overthrow them and make them suffer!

"We're not all as sex-obsessed as you are, feather brains," Sam shot back, extending his wing to pat Gabriel's back, though.

"Uhu, I'm just imagining that you love my butt, am I?" the other duck countered, wiggling his rump until he felt Jesse squiggling in his sleep and he stopped the movement.

"How could I not love it?" Sam replied with a good portion of humor in his voice, "It's small and feathery, just like the rest of you!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note: **Little reminder: I can see that people are reading this, please leave a review as well. If it's only a word that's okay with me!**  
**

* * *

**6**

"What a cutie," Ellen practically cooed when she first set eyes on the little kitten the two ducks had brought to her.

Sam and Gabriel had gotten up early to make sure that Jesse got his milk before he was starting to starve again. It had turned out to be rather difficult to get the kitten to sit on the taller duck's back so they could move faster, but they had managed in the end.

"We need a baby-buggy," Gabriel had commented, looking over to his partner thoughtfully.

Sam had only answered with a groan. He had been quite busy holding his wings and rump in a way that would keep the kitten from falling down while walking. Concentrating on the slight muscle cramps that had started after an embarrassingly short time had been preferable to the other duck's constant chatter, though.

The goat lay down to give the kitten easier access. She was a little unsure if this would work now that she saw how big her teats were compared to the cat, but apparently Jesse was nothing if not determined. Just like his honey-colored adoptive father, Ellen mused.

"I've got to give it to you, this was a good idea, Gabriel," Sam praised his partner, but when he turned his head to look at the other duck he realized that there was nobody standing next to him. The bigger duck had the sinking feeling that this couldn't mean anything good.

"Where did he go?" Ellen asked slightly perplexed that she hadn't noticed when the golden-brown duck had left. Sneaky bastard!

"If only I knew," Sam sighed and looked around them nervously. He was quite sure that the farmer was, in fact, very much alive and somewhere around, so he really didn't want to draw any human attention to them. And if there was anything Gabriel always succeeded at, it was drawing attention to himself.

"Your partner is quite…," the goat began, but found she didn't have the right word to describe the crazy, little duck. Well, there were 'crazy' or 'insane' as descriptions, but she was talking to his boyfriend, after all.

"Odd," Sam finished for her, "Believe me, I know."

Not one year ago they had met because Gabriel had thought the bigger duck looked like a perfectly nice landing platform. He would later claim that he had never done something like this before, but he had just had a feeling about Sam. Anyway, the brown duck had stomped off enraged but unwilling to get into a fight and had very quickly noticed that Gabriel was following him.

"Hello beautiful," Sam mimicked his partner's tone for Ellen as he told the story, "You've got to be a roast duck, because you're seriously hot!"

The goat basically shook from laughter after hearing that. The duck couldn't really blame her. It was his own fault for sticking with Gabriel, anyway. What could he say, though? He loved the crazy little bastard!

Speaking of the devil, the honey-colored duck returned dragging something behind him and looking suspiciously satisfied with himself.

"Sammy, look!" Gabriel quacked excitedly, "I found us a baby-carrier!"

The taller duck didn't dare to ask where exactly his partner had found the item as it was likely to get them into trouble. But it was too late to protest, anyway.

Gabriel stopped right in front of them and let the item drop onto the straw. He nudged Jesse into the one cup of the pink, lacey bra he had stolen from the farmer's clothesline. What Sam liked best about the idea of transporting the kitten in the strange item was that Gabriel would have to help him carry it and would be unable to speak for a short time, at least.

"It even has a second seat, if we adopt again!" the honey-colored drake explained. "Or if it rains…," he stopped to demonstrate his idea, by folding the second cup over the first, "Instant roof! Like a cabriolet!"

The bigger duck just stared both unwilling and unable to understand what exactly his partner was talking about. Ellen just laughed loudly and couldn't stop herself for quite some time.

"Ignorant philistines," Gabriel muttered, but was quite pleased to see that he had their son on his side at least, because he kitten had curled up in the one cup of the bra and was sleeping.

Sam sighed and then bowed his head to rub it against Gabriel's side fondly. "It's a good idea, birdie," he praised in a gentle tone and moved to grab the one side of their improvised baby-carrier.

"Thanks for the help, Ellen," the honey-colored duck said before he took the other side of the item into his beak.

Ellen looked after them highly amused. "See you later!" she called after them in a warm tone. It gave her a rather good feeling to know that she'd see that crazy little family quite regularly from now on.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note:** Maknatuna, BloodyRosie, I love you guys! ;-)**  
**

* * *

**7**

Gabriel was pressing his beak into the dirt and tried to keep his butt as close to the earth as he could, as well. The tall grass was hiding him well enough, he figured.

The honey-colored duck fixed his target with his eyes and made himself ready to bounce by wiggling his rump slightly.

"Prepare to die!" he yelled, jumping in front of the mouse with his wings held high. It was too bad that the mouse could not appreciate the absolutely terrifying look he made, because it had fainted the very moment Gabriel had appeared in front of it.

The honey-colored duck coked his head and frowned as much as a duck could before ducking down to poke the unconscious mouse with his beak. This was not quite how this was supposed to go! There was nothing heroic or even interesting about a kill that happened while the victim wasn't awake to scream in terror!

The mouse blinked a few times before he realized the duck was still there. His eyes widened comically and he passed out again.

"Hey, are you alright?" Gabriel asked once the mouse had gained consciousness again.

The little being twitched, but nodded after a short moment.

"So, what's your name?" the duck inquired in a chit-chat tone.

"Chuck," the mouse squealed in an extremely squeaky voice, even considering he was a mouse.

"Nice to meet you, Chuck, I'll be the one to kill you, today!" Gabriel said and watched fascinated as the mouse promptly fainted again. What a strange little thing he was!

The honey-colored duck held Chuck's tail in his beak and carried him off toward the bush where they had their nest. He really wanted to introduce the strange mouse to Sam before he killed him. Besides, Gabriel hadn't quite figured out how he was going to do it. Break his neck, probably.

"Sammy, look what I caught!" the honey-colored duck announced proudly and let Chuck drop to the ground in front of the bigger duck none too gently. The mouse twitched a couple of times but remained unconscious.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Sam asked, staring at the mouse in front of his feet, "Don't tell me you adopted a mouse as a playmate for our _kitten_?"

Chuck twitched some more when the word 'kitten' fell, but his eyes remained closed.

"Of course not!" Gabriel replied, outraged at the idea, "I heroically _caught_ a mouse as _food_ for our kitten!"

"What?" both Sam and Chuck exclaimed.

"The sooner he learns to eat things like Chuck there, the sooner we don't have to carry Jesse over to Ellen every few hours!" Gabriel explained logically, addressing both his partner and the mouse.

They had made the trip to the farm carrying the kitten in the baby carrier two or three times every day for about a week, thus the honey-colored duck had decided that Jesse should learn to love the taste of meat sooner rather than later.

"You can't kill me!" Chuck squealed, "I have a wife and about sixty children… give or take a dozen."

Gabriel looked at the little fellow definitely impressed after hearing that number. Even if some of the kids were quadruplets that still added up to lots of sex. The duck decided to kill Chuck quickly out of respect for his accomplishment, but kill him anyway for bragging and out of jealousy.

"Gabe, we're not killing Chuck!" Sam stated definitely.

The other duck deflated noticeably and sat down next to Jesse's baby bed – as known as the farmer's wife's bra – to sulk. He had put so much effort into this and now he didn't even get to murder the little bastard. He could have killed Chuck just for spoiling his fun!

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" the mouse squeaked and actually went as far as to kiss the taller duck's feet out of gratefulness.

"Are you changing your mind, yet?" Gabriel asked in a devilish tone of voice. It was easy to see that Sam wasn't all that happy with the mouse that very moment.

Chuck twitched again and quickly moved away from both ducks and from the sleeping kitten. Looking at the baby, he wouldn't have been able to eat the mouse, anyway. That didn't mean that the ducks couldn't have killed him, however.

"No worries, nobody here will kill you," Sam assured the mouse in a gentle tone. He was a little worried that the little creature's heart might give out at this point. Alright, Jesse might try to eat him, once he was big enough for things like that, but he absolutely wouldn't remind the mouse of that.

"You can leave now," the brown duck told the mouse.

He wasn't even done speaking before Chuck had already left the bush.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: **Many thanks to Maknatuna, BloodyRosie and Mello18! You guys are great!**  
**

* * *

**8**

„… I swear, Becky!" Chuck squeaked clearly upset, „They were two homosexual ducks and the smaller one of them threatened to kill me! Repeatedly! They had an adopted kitten sleeping in some pink thing! They were here before!"

Sam and Gabriel were approaching their nest with Jesse curled up in their lacey pink baby carrier after another food-run to Ellen. The taller duck hadn't thought they'd ever see the mouse again, but apparently he had come back with reinforcements.

"I love you for your imaginativeness, Chuck, but you are worrying me!" a very high-pitched female voice replied.

Gabriel was clearly highly amused which did nothing to improve his partner's mood. The entire incident with Chuck had been bad enough! Sam really didn't want to have a sequel to that, especially not one involving the owner of that annoying female voice!

"Finally!" Chuck exclaimed, throwing his tiny arms in the air at the sight of the two ducks with their kitten. It was hard to recognize this mouse as the same trembling bundle of nerves that had been there earlier. He seemed sort of determined and by far more courageous.

Sam and Gabriel set the bra to the ground. They wouldn't be able to speak properly with fabric in their beaks. Before the taller duck could apologize profusely and get the mice to leave again his partner spoke.

"We have returned!" Gabriel stated dramatically unfolding his wings in an imitation of that vampire with the wonderful cape he had seen in a movie. He topped the performance off by cackling as madly as humanly – or duckly - possible.

Chuck promptly squealed and fainted. Becky might not even have noticed with the way she was eyeing Sam up, though. Gabriel didn't like it one little bit!

"Keep your eyes to yourself, sister. That sweet piece of ass is mine!" the honey-colored duck damn near growled, dropping his wings but moving up into the mouse's space to intimidate her.

Sam sighed and grabbed a few of the feathers on Gabriel's rump to pull him back. He might have pulled a little too strongly and ended with one of the feathers in his beak, but not attached to his partner anymore.

"I'm sorry, Gabe is a jealous duck," Sam explained after letting the feather fall to the ground, "Did you want something?"

Well, it was quite apparent why the two mice had shown up, but they somehow had to get back to that topic so they could solve it and get rid of them again.

"Your babies?" Becky replied, staring at the tall duck spellbound while he was speaking. She had never wished to be a duck more than she was at that very moment. The female mouse didn't know if it was possible to be born the wrong species, but she very much felt that way that very moment.

Sam opted to completely ignore that he had even heard that. It was bad enough that he was having a kitten with his duck partner. He wasn't going to even give a thought about having… whatever with a mouse!

Gabriel hissed at the mouse and went to poke her still unconscious partner. "Your friend's hitting at my partner, Twitchy. Do something!"

"She's my wife," Chuck replied, struggling to get back to his feet and being assisted by the smaller duck.

"Oh man, I'm sorry," Gabriel replied seriously before something caught his eye and he turned around quickly, knocking Chuck over with his rump in the process.

"Awww, baby's first toy," he cooed, watching as Jesse pawed at the feather Sam had dropped earlier, "Pulled straight from daddy's ass."

Everyone stared at him mutely for a few moments before Becky fit into giggles. The taller duck looked like he wanted to facepalm really badly, but that was hard to accomplish without palms. Sam wouldn't have known what a facepalm was anyway, but Gabriel had heard and seen mostly teenagers use that word and make the gesture it described a lot when he had taken up residence in the yard of a catholic school.

"Why do I love you again?" the brown duck asked shaking his head at his partner's antics.

"Because I'm awesome," Gabriel replied without batting an eye as he threw himself at Sam, "And the sex is earth-shattering."

Chuck squeaked in terror and hurried toward the exit. After a couple of feet he stopped and ran back to drag his wife outside alongside him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note: **Thanks to Maknatuna who is my most faithful reviewer, ever. You rock, girl! It's purely coincidental that I decided to upload this one just as I got a message saying that SoFollowMeDown has added this to her/his alerts... but I'm totally spamming your inbox with this update notice on purpose now! ;-)**  
**

* * *

**9**

It was a nice early summer's day and Sam and Gabriel had taken Jesse outside to rest in the sun. The kitten was definitely growing and he was getting better with walking on his own, but when they went to Ellen to get some milk for him they still carried him in the pink bra. It wouldn't be that long until he would be able to walk at least most of the distance himself, however.

Gabriel had also discovered that the kitten was starting to develop his play instinct more and more and he was happy to provide him with all sorts of little things he could find around the forest and sometimes on the farm. He had also allowed Sam to pull another of his feathers from where it wouldn't be missing on his butt.

"I'm going for a swim," the honey-colored duck announced, "Gotta keep this splendid body all ripped and well toned for you."

Sam just nodded sleepily tightening his wing around Jesse now that he would have to keep an eye on their adopted son by himself. He had learned very quickly to ignore a lot of the things Gabriel said, for peace sake. He didn't think the two of them would have ever managed to build a working relationship, if Sam had stayed the exactly same stubborn duck he had been before he had left his home. Dean would have welcomed the changes as well, he was sure.

Their pond wasn't big enough to be called a lake, but it was big enough so some humans came to bathe in it during summertime. It wasn't quite warm enough for that yet, but it was warm enough for a family to have a picnic by the shore. Gabriel, of course, decided to check out what they had brought with them. For all their faults, humans had a pretty good taste in food.

Once he had swum close enough to them to get a good look his attention was grabbed by something else, though. Sure, the humans had food with them, but he was more interested in the small human they had with them, as well.

The baby was old enough to sit on the blanket and play with a couple of toys while sucking on a pacifier. The other humans weren't paying that much attention to him or her, either.

The honey-colored duck cocked his head curiously when he saw the little, yellow rubber duck the baby was playing with. He had seen rubber ducks before, but they had held no interest for him. Well, he had thought about why humans might want to have rubber ducks in the first place, but had come up with nothing. Nothing suitable for children, anyway. It looked like the things were meant for kids, though.

Following a sudden impulse, Gabriel climbed out of the water and very carefully approached the baby who looked at him with big eyes. The duck quickly made sure that the parents still hadn't noticed him and then stormed forward, grabbed the rubber duck and threw himself back into the water, swimming away as fast as he could, leaving completely flabbergasted adults and one slightly scared baby behind.

At the other side of the pond – luckily protected by thicket and not easy to access for any human – the honey-colored duck dropped his price in front of a fuming Sam.

"That was the stupidest, most reckless thing you have ever done!" the taller duck yelled at his partner, "What if the humans come looking for us now?"

Gabriel tried to look like he was seriously sorry, but the residual adrenaline pumping through his veins and the euphoria about having pulled that stunt off was making that very hard. Once he realized that Jesse had stood up and wobbled over to inspect the rubber duck there was nothing dampening the honey-colored duck's feelings of accomplishment.

Besides, the humans hadn't followed him at all and their baby had many more toys! It was only fair that Jesse got one, as well. If you asked Gabriel he was some sort of feathery Robin Hood!

"You can't just…," Sam started again, sighing tiredly, "You can't do things like that, anymore! We can't just fly away at the first signs of trouble! How would we do that with Jesse?"

"Calm down, Sammy, have I ever led you wrong?" Gabriel replied in a soothing tone, rubbing his neck against his partner's. Okay, so maybe they had gotten shot at once, but how had he been supposed to know that they were in a busy hunting region before the first shot had fallen?

"Your daddy's an idiot," the brown duck told their kitten seriously, but he already felt how he couldn't stay mad at his partner any longer.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note:** Much love to Maknatuna, Mello18 and BloodyRosie! I'm open for suggestions about what our little strange family should do in the future, by the way.**  
**

* * *

**10**

"You know, Jesse, when I was only a little older than you are now, I fell from heaven," Gabriel told the little kitten in a serious tone. The baby even seemed to be listening to him, but Jesse always was rather willing to just sit and listen when they had just returned from Ellen. Well, he was lying in his pink lacey bra/baby carrier and was about to drift off to sleep, really.

Actually, Gabriel's mother had followed a sudden impulse and had built her nest on top of a big stone and the honey-colored duck had taken a tumble down when he had balanced around on the edge of the nest.

"And then father called 'Gabriel, get your ass back up!'," the duck continued talking, stroking over the kitten's back with his wing every now and then, "And I replied 'You're not the boss of me!'."

To tell the truth, he had only meant to walk around the park for a little while and then return once they had had enough time to miss him, but as these things were, Gabriel had gotten distracted and had strayed further and further from home. He had not seen his parents or any of his siblings again afterward.

"Your mommy," the honey-colored duck started and then took a quick look around to make sure Sam hadn't heard him using that word, yet again, "Your mommy comes from a farm. He says everyone in his family is a duck, but I know that his daddy has to be a goose. Anyway, his daddy was like 'You stop complaining and just do what this family has been doing for generations!'. I think what he meant was eating and swimming laps in the pool, but your mommy never really said."

Surprisingly, the kitten was still listening. He even seemed a little more alert than before. Something must have caught his attention and it only spurred Gabriel on more.

"And your mommy looks your granddaddy in the eyes and is like 'Oh yeah? I'm leaving then and I will meet this totally handsome and extremely sexy duck and I'll have a kitten with him and then you'll be sorry!'," the honey-colored duck went on talking, getting more excited as the story continued, even if he was changing some of the details to make it a better tale.

"Your mommy and I had been going out for a few weeks and suddenly we get jumped by the human vice squad!" the honey-colored duck told the kitten dramatically, "Apparently, humans don't like unmarried ducks going at it like rabbits, so they put rings on us."

Gabriel lifted his left foot to let Jesse take a better look at the band around his leg. It fit quite snugly, so he didn't have to worry that he might lose it. Sam was wearing a matching one. The brown duck had been annoyed with the ring and hadn't quite seen the point in a formal wedding – Gabriel had explained to him that this was what had just happened to them – since they had been mated already, anyway. The honey-colored duck did not tell his partner that the difference between being mated and being married was that marriage meant less sex for everyone involved. He had learned that much from listening to human males over the years.

"See, that means we're married. Marriage is what humans have as a socially accepted and desired form of slavery," Gabriel elaborated. This story should serve an educational purpose as well, after all. "But don't worry, mommy and I are mated as well and that means we love each other."

The honey-colored duck never got to finish his story, because this was the moment when Sam returned from his quick swim. His partner wouldn't allow him quite as much artistic license as he had taken this far, but where was the fun in having to tell the story as it had really been?

"Mommy!" Jesse suddenly exclaimed and all thoughts of the story were forgotten. Both ducks were staring at their kitten in stunned silence, for a few moments.

"Yes, yes!" Gabriel finally stated excitedly and pointed at Sam with his wing, "Mommy!"

The taller duck had been looking at their baby in wonder, but once he heard what his partner had just said the most epic bitchface a duck had ever managed and could ever manage made an appearance.

"Mommy!" Jesse repeated, clearly looking at Sam this time.

The big duck didn't have the heart to tell the kitten no and instead went to cuddle him. He shot a very annoyed glare to Gabriel as he did so, though. The smaller duck completely ignored this and just joined the cuddle-pile, however.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note:** Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, BloodyRosie, Mello18 and finn. You guys make me very happy! :-D**  
**

* * *

**11**

"Daddy," Gabriel said, pointing at himself with his wing, "Da-ddy!"

It irked the honey-colored duck to no end that his adopted son was calling Sam 'mommy' but had not yet made a noticeable effort to broaden his vocabulary. He'd get him to say 'daddy' soon enough, Gabriel was sure. He had already gone as far as to say the word for Jesse and then opening the kitten's mouth with his wing to encourage him to repeat it. This had only resulted in Gabriel's wing being chewed on, however.

"You know, some think that babies start by saying 'daddy' most of the time, because there's no reason to call for 'mommy', she's there all the time anyway," the duck mused, looking at Jesse inquisitively, "Do I really need to leave you alone more often so you'll say the word?"

Jesse didn't seem too impressed with the threat and just rubbed his head against Gabriel's upper body. The honey-colored duck melted immediately and all thoughts of teaching the kitten a lesson by just leaving for a while were forgotten.

"Daddy," Gabriel said again, pronouncing the word very clearly before his thoughts got distracted and he added, "Or would you rather call me Captain Amazing?"

Thinking about it, everybody and their mother was called 'daddy' – well, maybe not the mothers, usually – so something else would be better suited to describe Gabriel's general awesomeness, anyway.

"What do you think about your Highness, or Gabriel the almighty?" the honey-colored duck asked the kitten. He considered his own ideas for a couple of moments and found that they were both good and described him perfectly.

"What about dumb duck?" Sam suggested with a chuckle. He was finished with checking on their territory and had come back just in time to hear Gabriel ranting about what Jesse might call him.

"Mommy!" the kitten squealed and ran up to the taller duck immediately.

The smaller duck scowled at that. Not only had his partner made fun of him, but his own son had stabbed his back by immediately speaking as soon as Sam had shown up!

Gabriel let himself drop to the ground dramatically. He even put his head on the earth, as if he was playing dead duck. Not that he ever played dead duck, to begin with. Gabriel was by far too brave and bold to weasel his way out of any situation by pretending he was dead! If anything he ran like hell!

"Woe is me!" the honey-colored duck sighed, "My own son… my own son won't call me daddy! … or Captain Amazing!"

Sam just shook his head about his partner's antics. He bowed his head down to let Jesse lick over his beak and cuddled the kitten for a little while.

It was damn hard to watch Gabriel sulk and moan, though. Sam knew that the honey-colored duck might be exaggerating, but he clearly really felt bad about the situation. Yes, the other duck's ability to show his pain this clearly was a part of the reason why Sam had allowed him to stick around, even after their disastrous first meeting. It also was a part of the reason why the taller duck had given the relationship a chance.

Sam very gently pulled on Jesse's ear to get the kitten's attention and then whispered something to him. He might not spend as much time alone with the son as Gabriel did, but they had a good connection between them, anyway. Besides, the sooner Jesse learned that new word, the sooner Sam could start to teach him to use it for him as well.

After a couple of moments Jesse hurried back over to Gabriel and looked down at his father's beak curiously.

"Da-ddy," the kitten exclaimed and before he knew what had happened he was swept into a feathery embrace by his very excited father.

"Such a smart boy! Exactly like your daddy!" Gabriel praised Jesse and cuddled him some more, "Not long now and you'll hold speeches and – who knows? – you might be the first cat-president of the United States!"

Sam knocked his head against the closest twig after hearing that. Somehow, Gabriel always found a way to make his partner regret doing something to make him happy. Alright, usually making the honey-colored duck happy resulted in him feeling incredibly horny no matter where they were, or what they were doing. It wasn't like Sam was complaining about that every time.

"First the United States and then _the world_!" the honey-colored duck cackled madly and was even more pleased when his son joined him with the laughing. Okay, Jesse's laugh was more sweet and high-pitched, but a good evil laugh took time to develop, anyway.

"I am surrounded by… megalomaniducks," Sam stated, shaking his head, but looking at his family fondly. They wouldn't be quite the same if they weren't, after all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, BloodyRosie and nonsolumsedetiam!

* * *

**12**

"Help, help! Won't somebody help me?" Becky screeched as she ran toward the bush where the crazy duck family – containing on certain member she really wouldn't mind getting to know closer – lived.

"What's that?" Sam asked a little groggily having just awoken from one of the short afternoon naps he had taken up after they had adopted their baby kitten. They were up at the most impossible hours of the night ever since Jesse had appeared in their lives, so the tall duck chose to take every minute of sleep he could get whenever he could get it.

"Maybe something wants to eat her," Gabriel commented casually. The golden-brown duck never seemed to sleep and always was on top of everything that was happening, or so he thought, anyway.

"Just go back to sleep, it'll stop once they kill her," the honey-colored duck added with some malicious glee in his eyes. There was no use denying that he couldn't stand Becky. Chuck was a pushover, but fun. Becky was a nuisance! How dare she think that she could flirt with Gabriel's partner?

"Oh thank the big mouse in heaven!" Becky exclaimed and ran straight up to Sam to hug him as much as her tiny arms would allow, "My hero! You'll help me!"

Gabriel scowled and moved closer to his partner possessively. He noted with some satisfaction that Sam didn't seem to be too happy with the mouse-hugs, anyway.

"Jesse, I want you to take a good look at that woman over there," the honey-colored duck whispered to his adopted son, "She's food!"

The kitten only rubbed his head against Gabriel's beak, though. Alright, that lesson would have to wait until he was a little more grown up. Eventually, Becky would have to pay for her audacity!

"It's Chuck!" Becky finally squealed an explanation. She didn't stop grabbing the feathers on Sam's chest, however. "He climbed into this thing the humans left behind and now he won't get out!"

The tall duck stood up very abruptly and winced slightly when the mouse pulled painfully on some of his feathers because of it. At least she couldn't hug him anymore, though.

"Alright, lead the way," he said and looked at Gabriel to find out if he planned to stay here, or if they would have to take Jesse with them. Apparently, the honey-colored duck wouldn't dream of leaving his partner alone with the mouse. The kitten might enjoy a little stroll through the woods, anyway.

They didn't have to go far until they heard Chuck singing. His voice sounded a little distorted, however. The reason for that became very apparent when they could see where the mouse was. The mouse had climbed into a bottle and for some reason didn't get out again.

"Oooooooh, the wife!" Chuck called from the bottle in a tone that sounded by far too confident to come for the nervous, little dude. He was slurring his words a little, too. "Aaaand she brings the little lunatic!"

Gabriel looked outraged at that comment and straightened up to his full height. "Don't you go call my son names!"

"Not the kitten! You! You idiot!" Chuck replied, trying to stand at his full height as well, but falling on his butt as soon as he lifted his hands from the ground.

"Oh, that's alright then," the honey-colored duck let the mouse's words appease him. He eyed the bottle Chuck was trapped in and noticed that the mouse would probably be able to get outside by himself, if only he could stand straight. Or, of course, if somebody would help him.

"Why don't you crawl in and get him out, sister?" he asked Becky in a tone that made perfectly clear that he thought the female mouse should have thought of this herself.

"Childbearing hips, I won't fit!" Becky answered and ducked her head slightly embarrassed, "I'd like to see your figure after giving birth to sixty-seven!"

Gabriel considered this and decided that Chuck deserved to die for probably having more sex than he did! It was too bad, that Sam didn't share his opinion.

"Okay, we can't leave the thing standing here," the tall duck stated thoughtfully, "Some humans might come… we'll have to roll it away."

Jesse had helped with coming up with that idea by pawing at the bottle and moving it ever so slightly.

"I say, stuff Becky in there with him and leave them for the humans," Gabriel muttered, but moved to help with moving the object after Sam shot him a pointed look.

The two ducks rolled the bottle toward the more sheltered part of the forest with their beaks, while Jesse walked next to them yelling 'mommy' or 'daddy' every now and then.

Becky was hurrying to keep up with the bottle and screeched every time Chuck fell over and was rolling around inside. The way to their home had never seemed quite this long!


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's note:** Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, Mello18, nonsolumsedetiam and Tendencia.**  
**

* * *

**13**

"…the one guy has hair you could so totally build nests in," Chuck chattered on excitedly, "And the other guy has bowlegs and together they run around salting everything!"

Together, they had managed to get the bottle currently containing the mouse to a safer location. Now they only had to decide what they were going to do with him. After all, they couldn't be too sure that Chuck would ever stop behaving like he did.

"Have I mentioned that other dude with the wings?" the mouse asked, trying but failing to concentrate, "He's like 'I don't understand that reference' and wing-man and bowlegs look at each other like they want to eat each other, only they don't!"

Becky was beginning to wonder how she was going to introduce her next husband to the few children that still lived at home or came by regularly. 'Yes, I know he's a duck, but look at that chest!' was her favorite option, this far.

"Oh, you mean they're eye-fucking?" Gabriel asked not terribly helpfully. The male mouse was obviously in an altered mental state for some reason. Indulging his fantasies didn't seem like such a great idea, especially not if it kept him talking. Of course, the honey-colored duck enjoyed listening to him rambling on and on, though.

"Yes, exactly!" Chuck replied, "What is eye-fucking?"

Sam just shook his head at the entire scene and instead ripped a long blade of grass from the ground and wiggled it around for Jesse's amusement. They were probably going to be there for a long time.

"You're such a dedicated daddy," Becky cooed while Gabriel was explaining the term to Chuck in basically the words the mouse had used before the honey-colored duck had given him the word to name that sort of behavior.

Sam tried to ignore the female mouse and just let the kitten chase after the blade of grass some more. Maybe he could claim that Jesse needed food and just take him over to Ellen by himself.

"What would you think about a couple more kids? Like sixty-seven?" Becky asked giving the brown duck a flirty look.

"Come on, lady, your husband is right there!" Sam answered with a groan.

Gabriel looked like he wanted to murder Becky and throw her body to the wolves. Not that he'd go anywhere near wolves. Faced with the decision between a mouse and a duck, they'd clearly just take both!

"Okay, there's got to be a way to get him out of that thing!" the honey-colored duck mused studying the bottle some more. He had seen lots of those things being destroyed over the years, so it couldn't be that hard to do! "We just smash the bottle!"

"That could hurt him! We'll probably have to wait until Chuck is behaving himself again," Sam sighed. He didn't like the prospect of sticking around that long, either.

Gabriel hadn't exactly waited for his partner's or the mouse's partner's consent, though. He was already standing next to the bottle and gave it a good kick to make it tumble down the hill and toward the big stone in the middle of it.

They could hear Chuck yelp from the bottle before he was gone too far for them to hear anything anymore.

Becky shrieked. Sam averted his gaze and kept Jesse from chasing after the bottle. Gabriel just cheered… until the bottle clearly missed the stone and kept on rolling.

"You think it's ever going to stop?" the honey-colored duck asked his partner with scientific curiosity.

"You'll make sure it does!" Sam ordered in a tone that didn't allow any objections, "I'll take Jesse to Ellen and you and Becky go looking for Chuck! Meet you back at the nest!"

Gabriel had really brought this one upon himself, so he deserved to have to deal with it on his own!

"Come, Jesse, we go to Ellen," the taller duck told their adopted son and nudged him gently with his wing to get him to move along.

"Ellen!" Jesse yelled and dutifully went away with his mommy who looked at him proudly for repeating a new word. Sam still gave both his partner and the female mouse a hard look before they were out of sight. He really was serious about this!

"Great, now you've made him angry!" Gabriel hissed at Becky and didn't give the mouse the chance to reply before he started to waddle down the hill. After all, Sam was used to the honey-colored duck's antics, so clearly the new nuisance had pushed him over the edge!

"Oh come on," Becky squeaked, hurrying after the smaller duck, "Now that he's gone, you could tell me a couple of raunchy details!"

Gabriel weighted his hate for the female mouse up with his love of telling dirty stories and began to talk.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna (who forgot to login for her review ;-)), Mello18, nonsolumsedetiam and Tendencia. You guys rock!**  
**

* * *

**14**

As it turned out, there was only so far a bottle could roll. Unfortunately, there was only so much a drunk mouse's stomach could handle, too.

"I feel so sick!" Chuck complained miserably as he tried with all his might not to throw up.

Gabriel was not impressed. The mouse had brought this upon himself, after all! Well, maybe not the part where he had been rolled down the hill, but that had been the logical consequence of him crawling into the bottle, so it really was his own fault!

"Oh my poor darling!" Becky cooed, "And you are still trapped in that horrible bottle you crawled into by yourself, because you are one stupid idiot!"

Her voice had gone harder and more upset toward the end and Chuck really was sort of glad that he was stuck in the bottle where his wife couldn't get to him.

"Okay, let's get the bottle back to the nest," the honey-colored duck finally ordered and brought his beak down so he could roll the thing toward the bush where they were supposed to meet up with Sam and Jesse later.

"No more rolling!" Chuck whined pitifully.

"I'd like to see you come up with a better idea," Gabriel replied mercilessly and began to move the bottle again.

This time around the mouse didn't even try to walk with the bottle's movements so he wouldn't fall over. He just lay on his back and rolled over every time Gabriel pushed the bottle forward.

"So, you were telling a story," Becky squeaked after a couple of moments.

"Oh yeah," Gabriel replied slightly out of breath from having to move the bottle on his own this time, "So, there's me an Sam and we're flying to this new place when I get a really great idea…"

If Chuck had thought that he couldn't feel any sicker, he had been wrong.

"… mid-flight, I'm telling you!" the honey-colored duck finished definitely very pleased with himself just as the mouse finally threw up.

* * *

It took a long time for Gabriel and the two mice to arrive in the duck family's nest.

Sam and Jesse had been back for a while, already. To tell the truth, the brown duck had started to worry about his partner and the two mice. Of course, worrying about Gabriel had been completely useless. Chuck looked much worse for the wear, however.

The tall duck pushed a piece of foil Gabriel had stolen from some humans to the other side of the nest to occupy Jesse while he whispered to the honey-colored duck, "Don't tell me he's dead… please, don't tell me he's dead! And why is he so wet, anyway?"

Sam didn't really think that Chuck had died in his bottle, because Becky was neither sad nor hysterical. If he took a closer look, he could see that the trapped mouse was breathing, too. The taller duck definitely was relieved, his second question still stood, however.

"See, he made a big mess in there so we took him to the rivulet and flushed out the bottle," Gabriel explained, "He was okay when we were done, but then he just fell asleep!"

Becky nodded along with what the honey-colored duck had just explained. They might have gone a little overboard with making sure that the bottle was completely clean. The third washing might not have been strictly necessary, but as Gabriel had said, Chuck had been okay afterward.

"Alright, so we wait for him to wake up," Sam sighed. He wasn't sure if the fact that Gabriel and Becky seemed to get along better suddenly was a good thing or just worrying. Hopefully, Chuck would make his way out of the bottle once he woke up and the two mice could go back to their home, soon!

Nobody had paid Jesse all too much attention for the past minutes, so it came as a complete surprise when the kitten suddenly jumped on Becky and began to lick the hell out of her.

Becky squeaked terrified, Chuck went on snoring peacefully and Gabriel looked completely and utterly proud of his adoptive son.

"He spends too much time with you," Sam commented, but it was clear enough that he was amused, as well.

"And he's a great student!" Gabriel replied proudly, "All that's missing is some cool one-liner and he'll be perfect!"

The honey-colored duck might get along with the female mouse as things were, but he saw no reason to remove the kitten from her back. It wasn't like Jesse was doing any damage.

Sam finally took pity on Becky and lured Jesse over to himself with a piece of string Gabriel had collected somewhere.

Their little group made a really strange picture when they settled for the night a little later.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's note:** Thanks to Maknatuna, Mello18, BloodyRosie and Tendencia for the reviews. :-)**  
**

* * *

**15**

Sam woke up early the next morning, because his back and neck felt incredibly stiff. He just wanted to stand up and stretch a little, but quickly realized that that wasn't going to happen. He also noticed what the reason for his cramping muscles was.

Jesse had been curled up against Sam's left side when they had retired for the night and Gabriel had been at his place on his partner's right. Becky had gone to sleep close to her husband.

Apparently, a few things had changed during the night, without the taller duck noticing.

The honey-colored duck had stretched his neck so his head was resting on Sam's back, the kitten was sleeping on his side and hugged his mommy's neck and Becky lay sprawled over the taller duck's beak.

Sam tried to at least dislodge the female mouse by carefully opening his beak, but that only made her slide even closer to his eyes. Oh joy! What a great start to the new day!

When Jesse finally woke up by himself, the brown duck was rather close to screaming, already. His muscles were very sore and he didn't really appreciate Becky's warm breaths against his right eye, either. Okay, he might have stood up and ended the situation like that, but he hadn't wanted to wake his entire family.

"Mommy!" the kitten meowed and licked over Sam's head for a few moments.

"Good morning, baby," the taller duck managed to reply.

Jesse watched with a lot of fascination how the miraculously still sleeping mouse bobbed up and down with Sam's beak when he spoke.

After that show was over, he walked over to the bottle to see if the mouse was still inside. Yes, he was and still sleeping, too. Jesse pawed on the glass a couple of times and pressed his face against it to get a better look. The mouse was sleeping on his back and snoring softly, but he seemed to stir when the kitten continued to paw against the glass.

Chuck slowly opened his eyes, realized he had a massive headache, groaned silently and then rolled to his side so he could stand up. A movement caught his attention and he looked up and saw a monster looking straight at him. He did not realize that it was just the image of the small kitten that was slightly distorted and looked larger through the glass.

"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"

Gabriel jumped to his feet and looked around quickly. "Show yourself, intruder, and I shall kill you quickly and painlessly!"

The taller duck snorted amusedly and threw the now awake female mouse off his beak with the gesture, as well. He sighed relieved to be able to move, finally.

Gabriel chuckled when the female mouse fell on her butt, but just pretended to innocently groom Sam's feathers when she shot him a glare.

A moment later, Becky hurried to get over to the bottle to look at her poor husband who was only slowly calming down again. He was, however, hurrying over to the opening of the bottle and squeezed himself through with some difficulties.

The female mouse hugged her husband and peppered his face with little kisses before she pushed him away and slapped him hard.

"Don't you ever dare to do such a stupid thing again!" she yelled at him.

Okay, the little adventure had given her the opportunity to spend a lot of time around the duck of her dreams, but the circumstances had barely been ideal!

"I won't!" Chuck squeaked a promise, "It was horrible, Becky and I had the strangest dreams, too! You were trying to drown me while he watched and laughed madly!"

Gabriel looked affronted at the completely inaccurate accusation. The mouse really should get his facts straight before he said things like that!

"Hey! _I _filled the bottle with water while _she_ watched!" the honey-colored duck clarified, "There might have been some laughing, admittedly."

Sam shook his head exasperatedly, but didn't comment.

In the meantime, Jesse had played with his rubber ducky a little, but then had decided to walk back over to the adults again. He patted Chuck on the back and then proceeded to hug the mouse affectionately.

"Food!" the kitten squealed in the way of greeting happily.

The mouse promptly fainted and only gave a few twitches of his paws. Becky slapped him – more gently, this time – to wake him up again. They probably should see that they took their leave soon, if she didn't want to have to carry her husband home.

"When did you teach him that?" Sam asked his partner curiously.

"Wouldn't you want to know?" Gabriel replied cheekily and leaned against the taller duck's side with a content sigh.


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's note:** Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, Darla M, Mello18 and Tendencia for the reviews!**  
**

* * *

**16**

"The mechanics of fishing 101," Gabriel spoke in a serious tone, looking at the kitten who was sitting close to the edge of the water.

Jesse's movements had become more and more coordinated in the past week and he was doing great with games of catching things his daddies threw for him, so the honey-colored duck had thought that it was about time for the basic lessons in fishing.

Apparently, Sam thought they couldn't teach Jesse to eat mice because of Chuck and Becky and birds were out of question for obvious reasons, too.

Of course, Ellen didn't mind feeding Jesse, but there was this entire thing about giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish.

Yes, Gabriel was going to teach his son to fish so he could feed himself. It couldn't hurt, surely.

"Fish. Are. Stupid," he explained to the kitten, "Stupid but quick."

It was too bad that they couldn't get a fishing rod for Jesse, but they were too big to steal and get away with it. They probably were too heavy for Gabriel to carry, anyway. Actually, it was too bad that they couldn't go dynamite-fishing. He had only witnessed it once, but damn, had that been exciting! The honey-colored duck doubted that Sam would have appreciated all the noise, though. Also, their pond might be a little too small for such activities.

The kitten didn't look like he really understood what his daddy was trying to tell him, though.

"Okay, come here," Gabriel told Jesse and then waited until they both stood in the very shallow water. The kitten splashed around in the water for a little while before he calmed down and looked back at his daddy.

"This is not a fish," the honey-colored duck explained pointing his beak at a stone and then at some algae, "Not a fish, either."

It was sort of unfortunate that there were no fish around, though. They probably would have to stand completely still and be very quiet and…

"Wait a second, I'll be back!" Gabriel announced before he swam further from the shore.

Jesse kept wading around in the shallow water, pawing at one of the 'not a fish'-s every now and then. Luckily, his daddy came back before the kitten could get bored and do something stupid.

"That's a fish!" Gabriel stated proudly, spitting the little fish on the ground next to Jesse.

"Fish!" the kitten exclaimed and watched the animal flounder for a few moments before he pawed at it curiously. It felt slippery under his paws and he didn't really know what to do with it, other than throw it around a bit that was.

"Fish are food," the honey-colored duck explained and got his adopted son all excited with it.

"Uncle food!" Jesse yelled and looked around himself frantically.

"No, no, no, not Chuck!" Gabriel shook his head, "Actual food… like… the milk you get from Ellen!"

"Ellen!" the kitten exclaimed and took off into the general direction of the farm.

Okay, so maybe teaching Jesse wrong words before he even learned the right ones had been a bad move on Gabriel's side. He could admit that. To himself. Alone. He would defend his perfectly acceptable and unique childrearing techniques to the death, if Sam said anything, though.

"Today's your lucky day," the honey-colored duck told the little fish before he kicked it back into the pond where it swam away immediately.

Gabriel waddled after Jesse and just called a quick "We're going to see Ellen!" toward their nest, so Sam would know where they had disappeared to. The taller duck had shown his partner the cold shoulder for days when he had last just taken their son somewhere without saying a word. It was an impressive feat for an animal that didn't really have shoulders, too.

Really, Sam had known Gabriel long enough to know that his partner was highly impulsive and often forgot everything around him when he found a new project. It wasn't the honey-colored duck's fault that his partner seemed to forget that all too often. If you asked Gabriel, he should never be punished for Sam's forgetfulness!

"Daddy!" Jesse yelled and ran back to the smaller duck to make him hurry up, already. The kitten loved the goat to death and Ellen seemed to return the feelings, so that was something and Jesse didn't grow up without a female's influence which would surely help him with his love-life later on. Well, if his future partner was comparable to a goat, anyway.

Gabriel wouldn't mind if Jesse should decide he wanted to date a goat, but if he had a say in it, he would prefer someone who would fit into their nest when they came to visit. A bunny, maybe.


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, Mello18 and Tendencia for the reviews.**  
**

* * *

**17**

"Hello, little man, what did you do today?" Ellen the goat asked the kitten that was storming up to her excitedly.

"Fish!" Jesse yelled his answer and went to lick Ellen's face as a greeting.

"We showed those fish who's boss, we did!" Gabriel added, bobbing his head contently. Okay, the kitten hadn't actually eaten that fish, but he would learn to soon enough.

Call it a rite of passage, but once Jesse was able to kill his own food they could totally move the plans for world domination ahead. Or they could work on general swimming and tree climbing next, Gabriel hadn't made a final decision there, yet.

Ellen chuckled and lay down so Jesse could go and get his milk. Sometimes it wasn't quite clear if the honey-colored duck was the adult or just another child. Actually, as soon as the taller duck was around as well, it really looked like Gabriel was a second child.

"I hope you left the pond intact," the goat stated not quite as jokingly as she would have with anybody else.

"Of course!" Gabriel replied, "We didn't have any dynamite at hand, anyway."

Ellen wasn't very impressed when the honey-colored duck explained the mechanics and merits of dynamite fishing to her. It sounded only loud and dangerous to her, really. Of course, the duck would like that, though. She really thought Gabriel would have made a good human with his love for all things loud and useless.

The kitten was just done drinking and looked around the barn to find anything exciting to play with when a big shadow suddenly loomed over him.

"Duck!" Jesse yelled joyfully and wanted to greet the newly arrived bird when he got pushed aside by a big wing rudely.

Gabriel was at his foster son's side immediately and cuddled the crying kitten for a few moments.

"What the hell is your problem?" he shouted at the red rooster, his wings still wrapped around Jesse protectively, "Yeah, asshat, talking to you!"

The rooster might be big and look threatening, but he had just hurt the honey-colored duck's son and that meant he would pay! It was too bad that Gabriel didn't have any weapons at hand.

"Duck," the rooster snorted scornfully and turned around to leave which only made the duck angrier.

Nobody was making Jesse cry and got away with it!

"Geronimo!" Gabriel yelled at the top of his lungs and lunged at the rooster, jumping on his back and pecking the back of his head repeatedly. Hey, if you were little you had to play a little dirty! Besides, what was the sense in a fair fight? Losing honorably was still losing, after all!

The honey-colored duck got a few more pecks and kicks in before the rooster managed to dislodge him and counter the attack.

Gabriel was missing a couple of feathers and a small wound at the crook of his neck was bleeding a little before Ellen separated the two squabblers. She knew that Alastair was one mean son of a bitch! He had been trouble ever since he had been transferred over from that other farm.

At least, the rooster knew when it was time to go, though.

The kitten was wailing loudly and ran up to his daddy the very second Alastair was gone.

"Milady, my sincere appreciation for your interference," the honey-colored duck quacked a little out of breath, "Although I was totally winning there! Could have only been seconds…"

Gabriel sat next to his distraught baby boy and let him cuddle up to his side as much as he wished.

"I'm pretty sure he hurt his beak with all the pecking," Ellen replied sarcastically.

"So, you noticed that, too," the honey-colored duck nodded satisfied. It had been all about defending his baby and he had done that, so he had every reason to be proud of himself. "What's his problem, anyway?"

"Apparently, there were two new ducks at his last farm and he got kicked out because of them," the goat explained, "You should have heard him go on and on about that coward Castiel and the douchebag Dean."

Gabriel looked at Ellen thoughtfully. His partner's brother was called Dean and he was meant to be sort of a douchebag. How many Deans that were douchebags and ducks could be out there, really?

In the meantime Jesse was going by instinct and cleaned his father's wound with his tongue before he hugged him some more.

"Awww, my little healer! You might become a doctor some day!" Gabriel cooed and cuddled his son appreciatively. A doctor was about as good as the president of the U.S. the honey-colored duck thought. Jesse could still play with the lives of people, if he became a doctor, after all.

"Just don't develop a taste for your daddy's blood now," Ellen chuckled.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's note:** Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, Mello18 and Tendencia for the reviews. :-)**  
**

* * *

**18**

A few days later Sam was checking his partner's wounds over just to make sure that they were healing as they should, once more. He really would have liked a chance to get his wings on that Alastair himself, but the rooster had made himself rare ever after that incident. Apparently, he didn't want to get into trouble because of ducks, yet again.

At least, Gabriel's injuries were healing fast and without complications. The honey-colored duck was acting like they were medals of honor, anyway.

"So, about that Dean, do you want to check out if he's your brother?" the smaller duck asked yet again, because he had yet to get a clear answer from his partner.

"I guess, yeah, why not?" Sam replied before he added quickly, "But look at what happens when I leave you alone for a short time! And Jesse is a little too young for a journey like that."

The other farm wasn't that far away, but far enough that they'd have to walk for quite a while. No, the kitten really was too young for that, but he was growing fast, so maybe they could all go rather soon.

"Sammy, I'm offended! It's not like bad things happen every time you turn your back!" Gabriel quacked vehemently, "Sometimes they happen when you are watching, too!"

The taller duck didn't think that the joke was all that good, or any good at all. He was just about to retort when Jesse called to them from the branch of a small tree.

"Mommy, daddy, I fly!" the kitten yelled.

Sam had barely enough time to run to stand under the tree before Jesse landed on his back. Okay, chances were the kitten wouldn't have been hurt by that fall, but the brown duck didn't like taking chances with their baby.

"Wow, did you climb up there by yourself?" Gabriel asked clearly impressed and ushered the kitten off his partner's back and cuddled him, "Good baby!"

Sam shot the other duck an annoyed look for that. There was no use reinforcing the kind of behavior that would get Jesse hurt!

"Cats don't fly, Jesse," the taller duck explained and was nearly sorry for it when he saw the crestfallen expression on the kitten's face. Wasn't it unfair how Sam had to be the mean one since Gabriel just wouldn't say no to anything?

The kitten looked back at his mommy with big eyes and nearly started to cry which, of course, Gabriel could not stand at all.

"Pretty sure they do," the honey-colored duck stated seriously, "In planes, or in hot air balloons."

Sam huffed and shot his partner an annoyed look. That cats might technically fly with some strange machines like humans did was not the point! The point was that Jesse couldn't just jump off any heights, because he thought he could fly like his parents!

"Come here, baby," the taller duck told Jesse after it became clear that the kitten wouldn't calm down this easily, "I'll show you something cats can do, too."

It was a warm early summer and the sun was shining, so getting Jesse wet wouldn't damage his health. They had meant to teach the kitten to swim sooner or later, anyway.

"Good idea, goose!" Gabriel stated excitedly, "I go get his rubber ducky!"

"I won't accept that name!" the taller duck called after his partner, but he knew he would hear the dreaded g-word again before long. Maybe they really should visit Dean, if only so his brother could tell Gabriel that there was not one goose in their family.

Sam waddled into the pond and Jesse followed him obediently. They had a little time for serious swimming lessons before Gabriel – and with him the general chaos – would return.

The brown duck made sure not to move too far away from the shore for the start and beckoned his adopted son over to him. In theory, Jesse should know how to do this more or less by instinct.

"Just come to me, Jesse, I won't let anything happen to you," Sam said softly and in a reassuring tone.

The kitten hesitated for a couple of moments when he was up to his neck in the water, but then he looked at his mommy and moved forward paddling with his little arms and legs.

"Good, very good, keep your head up," the taller duck instructed and helped the kitten by grabbing the back of his neck with his beak gently. That way Jesse could swim around a little longer and get more used to the feeling without having to burn himself out.

After a little while Sam escorted the kitten back to the really shallow part of the pond so he could catch his breath.

"I love mommy," Jesse stated and rubbed his head against the brown duck who just looked at him very proudly.

"Mommy loves you, too," Sam replied. Yeah, he had given up on getting the kitten to call him anything else.

"Cannonball!" Gabriel yelled and interrupted the moment between mommy and son with it.


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's note: **ARGH! I meant to upload this like four hours ago, but of course my internet connection decided to be annoying on my birthday. WOE IS ME! (You see where Gabe gets it from, yeah?) Anyway, new chapter time!

Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, Mello18 and Tendencia for last chapter's reviews! Love you guys! :-D**  
**

* * *

**19**

"When I was your age," Gabriel told the kitten that was resting on the sunlit ground in front of him, "We would play hide and seek all the time."

The honey-colored duck couldn't say that it was his favorite game. It included being inconspicuous and having to stay quiet, two things he wasn't exactly a natural in.

"Naturally, I always won", the honey-colored duck added, bobbing his head for emphasis, "They never found me and I spent hours in my hiding place behind mom's fat butt."

Really, there hadn't been that many good hiding places in the nest and they hadn't been able to go away from it, because it had been built on top of that stone. Maybe, his mother hadn't been very smart when she had built the nest, but Gabriel had to say the view had been great and it had looked seriously cool. Yes, he would have done the same.

"Sometimes I thought that they didn't even search for me, but when I asked Michael he always said that I was just too good," the duck looked thoughtful for a moment before he went on with a big grin, "He was right, of course."

And it was the much more logical explanation than that his siblings just wanted to get rid of him for a while. Michael and Lucifer never knew what they should do without his great ideas. They probably were still sitting in the nest staring at the empty space Gabriel had left behind, he thought.

Okay, they would need to get up and get something to eat every now and then, but otherwise they would just sit there and miss him. The honey-colored duck would have felt bad for his siblings, if they hadn't pulled his feathers as often as they had.

"Okay, so you go hide, I count to ten billion and then I come looking for you," Gabriel told the kitten, "That's how we played it."

He would count fast and skip a couple of million numbers, though.

"One," the honey-colored duck started to count and Jesse immediately took off in a hurry.

The kitten ran behind a big tree first and then stopped to look at places where he might be able to hide himself. He was sort of glad that his grey and black stripes would allow him to hide with a lot of backgrounds. The ferns looked good to him, but so did a couple of stones and a hole in a tree.

"Who are you?" a red kitten that couldn't have been much older than Jesse asked suddenly. He was accompanied by two other red kittens and they all looked at the slightly smaller kitten curiously.

"I am Jesse," the kitten replied, all thought of the game he was supposed to be playing forgotten for the moment. He hadn't seen other cats this close ever since he could remember, so he felt very excited.

"You talk funny," one of the red cats snorted.

"Do not!" Jesse insisted. The other cats didn't look all that friendly anymore, suddenly.

"Yes, you do!" another one of the red kittens nodded, "You talk like quack-meow, me-ack…"

The grey kitten had backed up against a tree while the others had followed him. They probably didn't mean to intimidate him as much as they did, but they did, anyway.

"Daddy!" Jesse yelled at the top of his little lungs.

Gabriel came waddling pretty much instantly. "I wasn't done counting! I was only at nine billion!"

The honey-colored duck stopped in his tracks when he saw the other kittens, though. At least, this time the red hazard was smaller than he was.

Jesse was at his daddy's side in a second and hid behind him only peeking at the other cats.

"That's your daddy?" one of the cats asked while the other two laughed, "No wonder you're so stupid!"

Gabriel bristled at hearing that.

"Who's stupid?" he quacked heatedly, "You guys are all red, because red in cats is a sex-linked color, carried on the X gene, therefore a male cat, having a XY chromosome, with that red gene will be a red cat. And obviously, you're all idiots and brats!"

That should show them! And yes, Gabriel knew he was getting into an argument with a bunch of children. They had started it, though!

"Stupid duck with his stupid duckling," one of the kittens replied not very eloquently but very mockingly.

Maybe the honey-colored duck would have thought about his actions twice, if it hadn't been for Jesse's agitation, but who was he kidding? He would have done the exactly same thing by himself, as well.

He grabbed the most annoying kitten by the back of its neck and quickly carried it over to the pond while Jesse and the other two followed. He then dunked the stupid brat into the water for a moment once and released him again so he could go running away with his siblings.

"We'll tell our dad!" the cats threatened while they retreated.

"I'm so scared!" Gabriel yelled after them mockingly and then put his wing around Jesse, "We'd better go find your mommy."


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna and Mello18 for last chapter's reviews :-)

Okay, short announcement: No more updates before Thursday or Friday, but I hope to be back on a regular updating schedule then. I hope you enjoy the chapter and I would be very happy to have a couple reviews waiting for me when I get back. ;-)  
Have a good week everyone!**  
**

* * *

**20**

"You picked a fight with a couple of kids?" Sam asked incredulously when Gabriel told him about what had just happened and about the possibility of some adult cat showing up sooner or later.

It wasn't like the honey-colored duck couldn't handle this on his own, but his partner shouldn't be too surprised when he took said adult cat apart on their front lawn. Besides, if the cat showed up when Gabriel was away Sam should know that he could tell him to wait for a little bit, he'd beat him up later.

"They started it!" the honey-colored duck insisted and pet Jesse's fur some more. Their poor little baby was still distraught over the entire episode. The kittens were lucky that they were children! Gabriel would have done way worse things than getting one of them a little wet, if they hadn't been!

"I am stupid!" Jesse wailed and dropped to the floor with his paws over his eyes.

The two ducks immediately sat on either side of their adopted son and warmed and cuddled him.

"You're not stupid!" Gabriel stated with vigor, "They are stupid and the entire freaking world is stupid, but you're not!"

Sam nodded along slightly. Okay, the honey-colored duck was exaggerating, but for the moment being that was okay.

"You listen to me, baby," the smaller duck went on talking heatedly, "People say I'm stupid a lot. They say I can't do the things I want to do and they say I shouldn't love big, male mommy-ducks but small, female mommy-ducks and they say I'm talking about stupid things and I don't give a flying duck about that. Do you know why?"

Sam sent a quick prayer to the big duck in heaven that Gabriel knew where he was going with this. He probably should prepare himself to correct whatever the other duck would say next, though. His partner surprised him this time, however.

"Because they don't give a flying duck about me, either," the honey-colored duck explained when he was sure Jesse was listening to him, "And we don't have to listen to people that don't like us, anyway. What do we do when someone is annoying the hell out of us?"

"Put them on the list and make them pay when we take over the world," the kitten replied as his daddy had taught him to after the incident with Alastair. It seemed very fitting in this context as well, even if Jesse didn't really understand what he had just said.

Sam gave Gabriel a pointed look after hearing that. Okay, it was making their baby feel better, so he wouldn't say anything, but that was not the sort of wisdom they should instill in their son.

"Okay, the point is, when people that don't know you and that don't even like you are saying you're stupid they just want to be mean. You don't listen to people that just want to annoy you," the honey-colored duck stated, "When someone who loves you says you're being stupid then you should listen to them, okay?"

The taller duck chuckled ever so quietly. As if Gabriel had ever listened to him when he said something like that!

"When mommy says we're being stupid, we know that he loves us and doesn't want us to get hurt, so we need to stop and think about it," the honey-colored duck went on, anyway, "And when Ellen or Chuck or Becky say we're being stupid we should consider their words, because they are our friends, too."

Hey, he had never said they wouldn't do those things anyway. Thinking about them didn't mean abandoning the idea! But he'd probably have been dead a lot of times, if he had never listened to Sam, too.

"And when you are not sure if you should or shouldn't listen to somebody then you ask mommy or me," Gabriel finished, "I'm sure we'll tell you that they are the ones being stupid and that you are our perfect, little genius in most cases."

The taller duck had to admit that his partner had just made a rather good speech and a quite serious one, too. That, right there, was why he loved the other duck. He could be very thoughtful and sweet and that was damn hot, too.

"Mommy knows best," Jesse meowed, looking at his daddy for confirmation and getting it with a definite nod and being cuddled some more.

"See, little genius, I told you," the honey-colored duck cooed and tickled his son a little to make him giggle. He was done being serious for the day, but if it was needed he was sure he could muster up some more seriousness for his family. Everything for those two!

"Daddy sometimes knows things, too," Sam chuckled and rubbed his head against Gabriel's neck affectionately.


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's note: **I have returned! Have a new chapter! ;-)

Thanks a lot to nonsolumsedetiam, Maknatuna, Tendencia and Mello18 for last chapter's review!**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity.

* * *

**21**

Sam and Jesse were sitting at the edge of the lake looking into the water quietly. The tall duck had decided to get the kitten used to fishing slowly and steadily and that was something Gabriel just wasn't fit to do.

"You see them?" the brown duck whispered to his little son.

There were a couple of fish swimming around. Getting Jesse to know what he would be trying to catch was the first step to success, after all.

The kitten nodded silently and went on watching the small swimming things as his mommy had told him to do. They looked fascinating and he was itching to get his paws on one.

Sam of course noticed that his son was getting impatient and just nodded his consent. If Jesse wanted to try, he should just go for it. The chances that he would catch one weren't that big, but failing at the first try was no shame, it only meant they'd have to try more often afterward.

Jesse waggled his tail and his entire backside along with it before he jumped into the shallow water and tried to get his paws on one of the fish.

"I touched one, mommy, mommy, I touched one!" the kitten yelled joyfully and climbed back to dry land and to Sam's side completely proud with himself.

"That's my big boy!" the brown duck praised the kitten dutifully and cuddled him a few moments. A lot more practice would be needed before Jesse could catch his own food, but he was slowly getting there. Okay, they would have to get him to actually eat fish, too.

Just then Gabriel came back from collecting some more things for their nest. Humans really left interesting things lying around. They were interesting to the honey-colored duck, anyway. The best thing he had found this time was a map of their surrounding area.

He was waddling toward his family to show them when a big red cat walked up to him and made Gabriel stop in his tracks.

"Are you the duck that threw one of my sons into the pond?" the cat asked menacingly.

"Are you the father of the brat that wouldn't leave my son alone?" Gabriel countered before he added, "Besides, I only dipped him in once, there was no throwing whatsoever!"

Like he would have seriously hurt a little kid on purpose!

"Gabriel," Sam called, walking over to the other duck with their son in tow. It didn't take a genius to figure out who the red tom-cat was and what he wanted. Great, just great!

"No worries, Sammy, Mr. Duckface just wanted to talk a little," the honey-colored duck told his partner.

"That's rich coming from an actual duckface," the red cat snorted.

"Good sir, I am a duck, therefore, unlike you, the duckface suits me," Gabriel shot back very satisfied with the comeback he had thought of.

"Can we just talk like civilized people?" Sam suggested keeping the kitten halfway behind him just in case. The red cat didn't look too friendly and the other duck was clearly annoying him. "My name is Sam, this is Gabriel and our son, Jesse."

"I am Zachariah and you are going to be sorry for ever messing with me," the cat replied acidly and stood in front of the honey-colored duck threateningly.

"Violence is never a solution," the taller duck insisted but went to stand between his partner and Zachariah, anyway.

"You talk like the coward you are," the cat stated with a snort and advanced further on the brown duck and his partner. "Somebody should take that kitten away from-"

The tom-cat never got to finish his sentence, because Sam very precisely and very forcefully pecked Zachariah's nose and puffed himself up to his full height.

"You better get lost before he gets really angry!" Gabriel stated seriously and together they watched how the cat ran away with his tail between his legs.

"That's my Sammy!" the honey-colored duck cheered and threw himself at his partner. Besides, the display of dominance and strength had been seriously hot. Somebody was in for a treat later that night!

The brown duck deflated nearly immediately and looked at Jesse meekly.

"Violence really is no solution," he spoke seriously. Apparently, Gabriel was not the only bad influence the kitten would have in his life. The cat really had asked for it, though!

"It only sometimes is," the honey-colored duck added to what his partner had just said with the best smirk a duck could handle.

Sam could barely disagree with that after what he had just done. He wasn't sorry for it, either. He was only a little sorry that Jesse had watched the entire thing.

"We ask mommy when it's a solution," the kitten concluded, obviously pleased with himself for coming up with that wisdom.

Gabriel looked at his son for a short moment and then swept him into his wings, "You're so smart!"


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, BloodyRosie, nonsolumsedetiam and Mello18 for last chapter's reviews.**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity.

* * *

**22**

Gabriel and Sam were waddling back toward their pond and nest while Jesse danced around them.

With the high energy levels the kitten displayed quite frequently, the taller duck figured it wouldn't be long until they could go and visit the other farm where a duck called Dean was supposed to live. He wasn't going to just assume that it had to be his brother like Gabriel did. He would be very disappointed if it turned out that there just was another duck called Dean if he got his hopes up, after all.

Granted, Sam had been the one to leave his family voluntarily, but that didn't mean that he hadn't wanted to ever see them again. In fact, he hadn't thought that he would stay away for long when he had walked out on them. A part of the brown duck had always supposed that he would walk around for a couple of days and then give up on the outside world and just return home. Of course, he had met Gabriel before that could have happened.

The taller duck's musings were interrupted by a sudden question coming from their son.

"Where do the little babies come from?" Jesse asked suddenly, walking between his two parents and looking at them curiously.

His vocabulary and speech in general had improved very quickly and the kitten's newest favorite pastime was asking questions.

Sam was still pondering on the answer he could give to this particular one, when Gabriel started to talk.

"Okay, listen kiddo," the honey-colored duck started seriously, "When a mommy-duck and a daddy-duck have been together for a while and they really want to have a baby, one of them goes for a walk in the forest and comes back with a kitten."

The taller duck would have facepalmed incredibly hard if only he had the palms required. Not to mention that the part where they really had wanted a baby before Gabriel had laid eyes on the kitten wasn't exactly true, but that was a lie that Sam would gladly go on telling their baby, he had to admit.

Jesse nodded along with the explanation, but the thoughtful look on his face gave away that he wasn't completely satisfied.

"Why is the kitten in the forest?" he meowed curiously.

"Because it's a good place to be," Gabriel answered with a definite nod and then added in a mumble, "And humans are bastards."

Bastards that would just hit a cat with a car and then leave her kitten behind to starve, to be exact. He wasn't going to tell the kitten about that, though.

"And where do little mice come from?" Jesse asked next. They had only talked about kittens this far, after all.

"From a lucky bastard called Chuck," Gabriel answered with a snort. He still wasn't quite over the fact of just how active Becky and Chuck seemed to be.

Next to him, Sam shook his head disapprovingly. Usually, his partner would teach their baby anything he wanted to know no matter how inappropriate it was, but he just had to be all cryptic on this topic.

"Whatever animal we're talking about," the taller duck began with his own explanation, though he was still unsure what exactly to tell the kitten, "You need a mo… a male and a female."

Mommy was a term that could apply for males and females from Jesse's point of view thanks to Gabriel, after all.

"And when they want to have a baby they…" Sam trailed off, because this was the part where he didn't really know how much he should say. Hell, he didn't really want to say anything more about it, but Jesse wanted to learn things and they really should assist him there.

"Go at it like rabbits," Gabriel threw in his two cents rather unhelpfully.

"Go at what?" Jesse asked rather predictably since he didn't know that expression.

The honey-colored duck stopped walking and beckoned his son over to him with his wing and then lowered his head so he could talk to the kitten in secret.

"It's a secret adult thing and we're not allowed to talk about it until you're an adult, too," Gabriel whispered.

Jesse looked at his daddy with big eyes and then nodded quickly. Secrets were important and needed to be kept, he knew that much. Also, his father would tell him when he was old enough and for the moment being that was good enough for the kitten.

"I'm not sure I approve of that," Sam told his partner in a hushed tone once they were on their way to the nest again.

"Should I have shown him that magazine I stole from the humans instead?" Gabriel asked seriously.

Some teenagers would meet at the edge of the forest sometimes and the honey-colored duck just hadn't been able to contain his curiosity when they had talked about a magazine that was supposed to reveal everything about women.

The taller duck looked at his partner in slight shock and shuddered thinking of when he had brought said magazine to the nest and they had looked through it.

"I completely approve of the only adults are allowed to know version!"


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's note:** Thanks a lot to nonsolumsedetiam, Maknatuna, Mello18, BloodyRosie and Tendencia for last chapter's reviews!**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity.

* * *

**23**

Jesse was paddling around the pond while his parents watched proudly. He had gotten very good with swimming very quickly. The kitten had yet to successfully catch a fish, but he was getting closer every day.

"Mommy, daddy, mommy, daddy," Jesse yelled ever so often to make sure that both his parents were watching him at all times.

He wouldn't have had to call for them to make sure of that, though.

"Some more training and he can swim for the Olympic team!" Gabriel stated proudly and waved his wing to show Jesse that he was watching.

Thinking about it, if the kitten became a famous sports star then he might have better chances to be elected president of the United States and once they had done that he could still become a doctor. Then again, did the president really need to have an occupation at the side? Also, when were they going to take over the world when Jesse would be busy with treating sick people?

"Do I want to know what you were just thinking about?" Sam asked, cocking his head slightly. He had noticed that Gabriel's attention had been elsewhere for some time, but he wasn't sure if he needed to know what had gone through his mind.

"Just trying to figure out what sort of Nobel prize Jesse is most likely to win," the honey-colored drake replied thoughtfully, "I'd go for peace, but I'm not sure our takeover of all the governments of the world will go over without a couple of minor bloodbaths."

Sam just stared at his partner for a few moments before he shook his head and went back to watching Jesse swimming laps in the pond. He really should have known better than to ask what Gabriel was thinking about. Especially after the last answer to that question had been 'duck porn'.

A couple of minutes later Jesse climbed out of the water and shook his entire body to send the water drops flying into all directions. He overdid it a little and ended lying on the floor himself, however.

"What have I told you?" Gabriel asked, standing up and walking over to the kitten to tickle him a little, "Getting dry is much more fun when you stand close enough to somebody else to get them wet!"

Jesse nodded dutifully and made a mental note to shake himself dry much closer to his parents next time. It should never be said that he wasn't willing to listen to basically everything his parents were teaching him!

"Look, daddy," the kitten exclaimed between giggles and pointed toward the pond where a very light-brown duck had just landed.

Sam looked at the newcomer suspiciously. They didn't get new animals around the pond all too often and there hadn't been any new ducks ever since the brown and the honey-colored duck had arrived, themselves.

"Looks like…" Gabriel mused before his eyes widened and he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Lucifer!"

He waved toward his brother with both wings to make sure that the drake saw them. If the light-brown duck had come to search for him then this counted as the longest game of hide and seek ever. The honey-colored duck wondered if they would get a Guinness World Record for this. There were other animals in that book as well, for all he knew, so it was a scandal that they hadn't given him a record, anyway. He should have been most ambitious duck of all times or something like that, at the very least.

"Your brother, Lucifer?" Sam asked a little unsure if that counted as good or as bad news. With everything Gabriel had told him about his brothers the brown duck wasn't sure if he ever wanted to meet them. It didn't look like he had a choice, though.

"Gabriel," the light-brown duck greeted, "Look at you. When you left you were small and young. Now you're small and older!"

The honey-colored drake nodded along with what his brother had just said completely ignoring the mocking tone his brother had used.

"Lucifer, meet Sam, my half-goose boyfriend and Jesse, our son," Gabriel introduced them to each other before he leaned closer to his brother and whispered, "Jesse is adopted."

"Nobody. In. My. Family. Was. A. Goose!" Sam clarified immediately and gave his partner a reprimanding look before he looked back at Lucifer, "Nice to meet you."

The kitten took the chance while the adults were distracted to get closer to the new duck and take a better look at him.

"This is your uncle Lucifer, you can call him uncle Luci," the honey-colored duck told his son seriously.

"No, he can't!" Lucifer hissed and made the kitten jump back a little with it.

Oh yes, this definitely was a promising start to a visit from the in-laws, Sam figured.


	24. Chapter 24

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, nonsolumsedetiam, BloodyRosie and Tendencia for last chapter's reviews.**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity.

* * *

**24**

"And then, from one day to the other, God decides we're going to move to the zoo," Lucifer told his brother, enraged.

Sam had decided to play with Jesse on the other side of the nest so the kitten wouldn't get too close to his uncle. The light-brown duck apparently didn't appreciate his nephew too much and the tall duck would do everything to keep his baby from being hurt by being rejected again.

"God?" the brown drake couldn't help asking, anyway.

"Our father," Gabriel replied seriously and didn't elaborate further.

Sam gave his partner a puzzled look at that. The honey-colored duck had talked basically non-stop ever since they had met, but strangely enough he hadn't said all too much about his family. Sure, he enjoyed telling the story of how he had fallen from heaven as a duckling and he would mention his brothers every now and then, but other than that he had been strangely tongue-tied about the topic.

"It's what his mother said when she first saw him. Oh my God," Gabriel explained, "The name stuck."

Lucifer snorted, but didn't say anything to that topic. He wasn't very fond of their father right now and would avoid saying a word about him that wasn't a curse or a complaint.

"You'll get used to the humans, he said," the light-brown drake huffed, "They're not so bad, he said. You just have to open your heart and give them a chance!"

The tallest of the three ducks couldn't help thinking that Gabriel's entire family was very odd to say the least. He didn't comment and went on rolling little, sparkly foil-balls over the floor for Jesse to play with, though.

"Of course, mother is already planning a new nest and Michael is completely on father's side, too," Lucifer finished in an annoyed tone. He turned his attention to the decorations of the nest for the first time after he was done speaking and gave Gabriel a hard stare once he had taken everything in.

"So, you decided to come find the one member of your family you knew you could count on," Gabriel stated, puffing his chest up proudly. He had known he was a very essential part of the family that would be dearly missed!

If Lucifer wanted to take down all humans then he had come to the right duck, too. Sure, the honey-colored duck hadn't thought about putting his plans into action all too soon, but if his brother insisted then they could start as early as the next day. They just needed to find some fitting camouflage for Jesse… and convince Sam that their baby was old enough to declare war on humanity.

"I stopped to rest at a pond and you were there for some reason," Lucifer shot back mercilessly, "Looks like you are overly fond of all things human as well, anyway."

The honey-colored drake deflated noticeably and sat on the floor, wishing once more for the ability to pout. He hadn't exactly forgotten how his brother had never taken him serious, but he had figured that things would be different now that he was clearly grown up and a force to be reckoned with.

"They got interesting things," Gabriel answered defensively, "And they make a mean baguette!"

Despite Sam's efforts to distract him, Jesse ran up to his daddy the second he noticed that the duck was getting a little gloomy.

"Humans make good slaves," the kitten exclaimed as he threw his paws around his father's neck and hugged him to cheer him up.

Gabriel perked up immediately and rubbed his head against Jesse's side affectionately. There was nothing like seeing just how perfectly their son's education was coming along to make him feel like the king of the world again.

Lucifer sneered and turned his head away from the strange scene in front of him. Gabriel had always been the oddball of the family – which meant something looking at their parents – but this was ridiculous!

Sam tried to catch their guest's eyes, if only to give him a warning look. The brown duck wouldn't take kindly to anything disturbing his family and bringing his two loved ones down and Lucifer had better understood that.

The light-brown duck shot a slightly amused look back, but it seemed like he was taking Sam's warning more like a challenge than anything else.

"Where did you get your kitten from, anyway?" Lucifer asked after a short moment of silence.

"Kittens come from the forest!" Jesse answered eager to use the knowledge he had gained recently, "Their duck-daddies and duck-mommies find them there and then they are a family."

"Hate to break it to you, kid," the light-brown duck replied, "But kittens come from cats. Ducks got nothing to do with it. Unless a stupid feather brain like my brother follows a sudden impulse and drags one home as a plaything."

The kitten looked alarmed immediately, even though he didn't fully understand what his uncle had just said.

"You. Out. Now!" Sam barked harshly and made ready to throw the other duck out himself if he had to.

Apparently, Lucifer was quite satisfied with what he had already done and went voluntarily, chuckling under his breath.


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, Darla M, Tendencia, nonsolumsedetiam and Mello18 for last chapter's reviews.

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**25**

"Gabriel says you're a jerk with a heart of gold," Sam told Lucifer with a snort, "I think you're just a jerk."

The honey-colored duck had stayed with their son to make sure the kitten didn't take the recent developments too hard. Jesse had seemed to be rather okay but very confused when Sam had left. That was bad enough in his eyes, anyway.

"You are my partner's brother though, so you get the chance to go back and say you're sorry to your brother and our baby boy," the taller drake finished, giving Lucifer a hard stare.

Apparently, that didn't have the desired effect on the other duck. How had Sam been supposed to know just what an effect it would have, though?

"What is someone like _you_ doing with someone like my brother?" the light-brown drake cooed. It was very scary that he didn't even sound mocking or sarcastic about it.

Oh yeah, everybody in Gabriel's family was completely and utterly nuts, Sam was convinced. The honey-colored duck was loveably odd and charmingly crazy most of the time, at least.

Also, the tall duck must have spent way too much time around his partner already, because he was quite tempted to give Lucifer an answer to his question. Something along the lines of 'Generally, I love him, I groom him and I call him Gabe'.

Before Sam could have said or done anything however, Lucifer was already rubbing his head against his neck. That made the brown duck jump back with an undignified, very surprised quack.

Clearly, something had to be wrong about him. Little loveably odd ducks, even littler nymphomaniac mice and relatively tall but absolutely mean ducks all had a thing for him, apparently. Dean would so have a blast with that information!

"You are such a mean, sick duck!" the honey-colored duck quacked enraged. He had just come out from under the bush where there nest was to see his brother flirt with his partner and he had had enough! "You don't deserve to be an uncle, anyway!"

"You wound me, Gabriel. You so totally," Lucifer replied in a clearly bored tone and even yawned in the middle of his sentence, "wound me."

"Oh, go to China, duckhead!" Gabriel shot back in a hiss before he turned his head toward Sam and explained in his normal tone, "They eat ducks there."

The tall drake nodded somewhat dumbly and had just started to wonder where their kitten was when he noticed Jesse and Becky watching the exchange from the entrance to the nest. Apparently, the mouse was meant to be babysitting their kitten. Wasn't Becky lucky that Jesse was a very well behaved – and somewhat species-confused – cat?

Becky and Jesse held their breath when Lucifer loomed over Gabriel. The mouse sort of wished she had a little snack at hand. The scene was getting pretty intense, after all. The kitten was rather worried about his daddy, even if he didn't fully understand what was going on, though.

Before Sam could even try to break the other two ducks apart, Lucifer grabbed one of Gabriel's tail feathers and pulled hard enough to pluck it straight from the smaller duck's butt.

"Hey!" the tallest of the three drakes protested vehemently as he pecked Lucifer into his chest violently, "That ass is mine!"

Despite the circumstances, Gabriel looked nothing but gleeful at that announcement. His butt still hurt a little, though. Lucifer had grabbed one of the feathers that would not have fallen out by itself in a long while, unfortunately.

"Do I have a bald spot now, Sammy?" the honey-colored duck asked a little concerned as he tried to stretch his neck far enough to see himself. He was far too young to go bald! And he was far too young for the mild mid-life crisis the thought of going bald caused in him, too!

Lucifer took the moment when Gabriel was distracted by trying to get a good look of his own butt and Sam being distracted by looking at said butt to pull out another one of his brother's feathers. Spitting it to the ground, the light-brown duck cackled madly.

A short, but rather intense struggle between Sam and Lucifer ensued pretty much instantly. The taller duck managed to keep the upper hand mostly and he had his opponent lying on his back and basically at his mercy after a little while.

"You are not welcome here!" the brown duck hissed, "Get lost!"

Sam had to admit that the rather adventurous life he led ever since he had been landed on by Gabriel had prepared him for a lot of things. Being ready for possible physical conflicts was one of them. Lucifer was nothing compared to the German shepherd they had been cornered by at one point.

"Whatever," the light-brown duck replied, getting back to his feet and making ready for take-off, "You just tell Michael that I went South when he comes looking."

The honey-colored duck snorted. Lucifer was so totally overestimating his own importance there! Nobody had come looking for Gabriel, so clearly nobody would come looking for Lucifer.

It just figured that it didn't even take a full day before Michael landed by the pond…


	26. Chapter 26

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, Slashify, Mello18, nonsolumsedetiam, finn, Tendencia and BloodyRosie for last chapter's reviews!

Does anybody know a good joke for me? I'm feeling kinda down right now, could use a good laugh...**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**26**

It was early the next day when Gabriel swam around in the shallow part of the pond and washed himself. Being his awesome honey-color was totally great, but you could see every single stain on those feathers! The drake idly wondered what it would be like to walk into a Laundromat and get himself cleaned in one of those machines. He suspected that Sam wouldn't let him, even if they could access one of them, though.

"Party pooper," Gabriel muttered, but looked over to the nest where his partner and their son were still sleeping fondly. He had known that compared to him Sam was completely normal and that the taller duck didn't have the sense for adventures he possessed from the start, after all.

The honey-colored duck had just been about to get out of the water again when a nearly black duck landed not too far from him.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no. No!" Gabriel exclaimed even as he swam closer to the newly arrived drake, "That's not fair! That's so not fair!"

The honey-colored duck took a deep breath before he started with an angry outburst of epic proportions.

"You are so not showing up at my pond, my end of the pond anyway, and ask if I've seen Lucifer, or anything of the like. You don't get to say that you weren't expecting to see me here, either. But most of all you don't get to make any mean comments about my goose-y boyfriend or our adopted kitten! And if your beak goes anywhere near my butt, I will break you!" Gabriel ranted on without taking a breath. "I've been gone for over two years. Two years, Michael! Nobody ever came looking for me! Lucifer is gone for what? A couple of days? And you come running after him?"

The black duck looked slightly confused, but took his brother's verbal outbursts rather indifferently otherwise.

"Are you quite done?" Michael asked after Gabriel had been silent for a second.

From his experience, you couldn't give Gabriel more than a second before he would find something new to say, no matter if he actually had something of value to talk about.

Besides, who was running after Lucifer? Michael was merely looking for his brother so he would know where he was. Not that he cared about that, he just wanted to know for the sake of knowing… and to let Lucifer know – in no uncertain terms – that he so didn't care where the idiot was at!

He'd have to deal with another feather-brain first, though.

"So, have you seen our brother?" the black duck asked completely casually, ignoring everything Gabriel had said just moments earlier.

The honey-colored drake blinked twice before he just took a deep breath and gave a long and very loud yell directly into his older brother's face.

"Oh, fuck you and fuck the horse you didn't ride in on, because you flew in," Gabriel wheezed a bit breathlessly after the extensive yelling he had done.

The honey-colored duck turned around and swam back to the shore to climb out of the water. Maybe, if he just pretended Michael wasn't there anymore he would disappear. How high were the chances that the black duck would explode, if only Gabriel concentrated hard enough? Then again, he'd probably feel bad for making his brother explode with the power of his thoughts sooner rather than later, even though it would be seriously cool.

For once in his life, Michael came after Gabriel, though.

"Are you seriously surprised that nobody searched for you?" the black duck quacked disbelievingly, "We didn't come looking for you when you were only hiding behind mother. What on Earth made you think that we would put any effort into looking for you when you were out of the nest?"

"You… I… we… it was hide and seek and I was just hiding too well!" the honey-colored duck insisted, though there wasn't that much conviction behind his words.

"You were. Right. Behind. Mother," Michael stressed, "Just listen to you talking about geese and kittens and your… backside… and you wonder why we were so glad to be rid of you for a while? So, Lucifer?"

Gabriel huffed and sputtered and tried his best to work up some righteous rage, but he was hurt too deeply to manage that. Instead he just pointed his wing into the direction their other brother had taken off into.

Michael didn't even say anything else before he flew away again.

Just a few moments later Sam and Jesse were cuddling up to Gabriel from both sides.

"What do you say?" the taller duck started after a few silent moments of comforting his partner, "Why don't _we_ play hide and seek?"

The honey colored duck was inclined to give a negative and possibly sarcastic reply to that, but before he could open his mouth the kitten spoke up.

"We'll search for you, daddy!"


	27. Chapter 27

**Author's note:** Thanks a lot to nonsolumsedetiam, BloodyRosie, Mello18 and Maknatuna for last chapter's reviews. Also thanks for the (mostly Gabriel related) jokes :-)

FINALLY they meet!**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**27**

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

Sam was this close to just finding anything to stuff into his ears so he wouldn't have to listen to the constant questions anymore.

"I can still see our nest from here," the brown duck stated somewhat unnerved, "So, no!"

Jesse was walking next to him quietly, basically bouncing with excitement, though. Oh yes, it was Gabriel that was testing Sam's patience with the repeating of his obnoxious question!

"Are we going to meet uncle Dean?" the kitten meowed excitedly, "Will we meet uncle Dean soon?"

Sam was trying his very best not to get annoyed with the new questions, because this time they were coming from their baby and Jesse had made better questions than Gabriel had, too.

"I hope so, baby," the brown duck replied and gently patted the kitten's head with his wing.

Jesse cheered at hearing that and hurried ahead a bit. He never went so far away that his parents couldn't see him anymore, though.

"What are we going to do if that duck isn't my brother?" Sam hissed toward his partner.

It hadn't been Sam's idea to talk about uncle Dean as if they already knew that the Dean they were going to see was in fact Sam's brother. Gabriel had started with that! And Jesse had taken his daddy's words very seriously and was all excited about meeting his uncle now. Well, the one uncle that most surely would not scar him mentally, that was.

"No problem, I have the perfect solution for that possibility," the honey-colored duck replied confidently, "If you see that duck and he is not your brother, you just call him uncle Dean, anyway!"

"Perfect solution," the taller drake answered sarcastically.

"Told you," Gabriel stated contently, completely ignoring the tone his partner had just used, "So, are we there yet?"

Sam was just about to give a scathing reply when Jesse hurried back to them with bouncing steps.

"Are we there yet, mommy?" the kitten asked.

"Are we there yet?" Gabriel repeated again, too.

This was going to be a long journey.

* * *

"Yes, yes, for duck's sake, we are!" Sam tried his very best not to yell, but he couldn't help sounding annoyed. He really couldn't say how often he had been asked if they were there yet, but it was like a million times too often!

They were standing in front of a human's place which should make them nervous, but Sam was too preoccupied looking for his brother, Gabriel thought they were having an awesome adventure and Jesse was fascinated by his new surroundings. The two ducks didn't notice that their baby had strayed a bit further from them than usually until they heard the kitten meow excitedly.

"Uncle Dean, uncle Dean!" Jesse yelled and threw himself at the brown duck he had just found close to a water basin.

"Dean, Dean, Dean, help!" Castiel yelled at the top of his lungs as he was attacked by a cat he didn't know.

"That your brother?" Gabriel asked, cocking his head as he watched their kitten lick the hell out of the struggling duck. If 'Dean' had not been as panicky as he was, he would have realized that he could easily get out of Jesse's grip, for sure. So, Sam's brother was a serious wuss, who'd have thought?

"No," Sam replied and pried Jesse off of the poor, distressed duck.

"You sure? He sort of looks like you!" the honey-colored duck questioned.

"Of course, I'm sure!" the taller duck answered with a snort. As if he wouldn't know his own brother when he saw him! Not to mention that Dean would have never panicked like that! Also, the unknown duck had yelled for Dean. Dean would not yell for Dean to come and safe him!

"Cas, are you okay?" the black duck that came waddling their way shouted worriedly before he stopped in his tracks at the sight of the two ducks standing next to his mate, "Sammy?"

"Dean!" Sam quacked excitedly and went to hug his brother immediately.

Gabriel nodded contently watching their reunion and Jesse watched his mommy curiously. So, the black duck was uncle Dean then. Awesome!

Before Dean knew what was happening his legs were hugged by an overly excited kitten meowing 'Uncle Dean, uncle Dean'.

"Huh?" the black duck asked eloquently as he freed himself from both his brother and the kitten and stood next to Castiel who – luckily – didn't look quite as distressed as before anymore.

"Uh, yeah… Dean, meet Jesse, your nephew," Sam explained a bit meekly and sending a quick prayer to the big duck in heaven that his brother would take this well, "And Gabriel, my partner."

"Looks like we have _a lot_ to talk about," Dean summarized their situation and wrapped one of his wings around Castiel, "Let's go to the nest."


	28. Chapter 28

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, BloodyRosie, nonsolumsedetiam and Mello18 for last chapter's reviews!**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**28**

"… and then Dean made his intentions known with a mating dance," Castiel finished, contently leaning his head against Dean's neck.

The four ducks and the kitten had settled down in the nest Dean and Castiel had built for themselves to talk.

"It was totally badass," Dean added, feeling a little embarrassed about the entire story with his failed mating dance. At least Cas had not gone into detail about how he hadn't even understood what Dean wanted from him at first.

"A badass mating dance," Gabriel mused, "You should consider teaching it to others, I'm sure there's a market for things like that!"

Dean and Castiel looked at the honey-colored duck as if he had just gone crazy, Sam knew that for Gabriel's standards that had been pretty sane and tame, though.

"Mommy," Jesse meowed in a complaining tone. The kitten was getting bored by the adults talking and there was so much to see around the place.

"Okay, baby, but you stay where I can see you!" the tallest duck answered and watched as the kitten took off joyfully. There weren't that many animals around for the moment being and the humans were being quiet, too. Letting Jesse have his own little adventure couldn't do any harm, surely.

Dean cleared his throat and cocked his head. "So, the kitten is your baby?"

"You got a problem with it?" Gabriel asked somewhat defensively after their experiences of the past days, "Yeah, you've got a kitten in your family now! But considering there's a goose, already…"

"There. Is. No. Goose!" Sam insisted once more, even though he knew perfectly well that his partner would not listen to him at all.

"Don't know, I mean grandfather-," Dean started before his brother cut him off harshly.

"No goose!" the tallest duck interrupted, "Don't encourage him, Dean!"

Gabriel looked like he felt confirmed in his belief already, anyway. The honey-colored duck had always known that there was some goose-blood in his boyfriend's veins. Fine, so it hadn't been his father, but going one generation further back still worked. Before they could discuss the family tree of the two brothers any more there was a high-pitched, happy sound coming from Jesse.

"Whee!" the kitten yelled from his place close to the nest.

He was just lying on the ground on his belly and there was nothing to be seen that might have made him react like this, but just a second later the kitten let loose another one of those sounds. "Whee!"

Castiel idly wondered if undergoing very tender phases in his development under the care of an improper species might have had strange effects on the psyche of the kitten.

"Jesse, what-?" Sam began a question, but was interrupted when his son cheered once more. The tallest duck blinked a couple of times before he turned his head toward his partner. "Is he vibrating?"

"I think that's not exactly normal for cats," Dean offered his knowledge on the topic. Castiel nodded along with what his mate had just said. At least, Crowley never vibrated like that. He might purr sometimes, when he was in a really good mood, but Jesse was basically shaking as a whole.

Before they could figure out what was going on the kitten jumped off the little plastic box he had been lying on with a happy expression on his face.

"That was fun!" he exclaimed and went back into the nest to cuddle up to his mommy and get his afternoon nap.

Castiel climbed out of the nest after a short moment of consideration and took a closer look at the object. He was pretty sure he had seen it before. He didn't exactly know the right word for what it was it, though.

"Emma must have lost this," the duck mused and then quacked in surprise when Gabriel was standing right in front of him, suddenly. Damn, the small duck could really move very stealthily!

"It's a telephone," the honey-colored duck explained to the others, "Humans talk to them and they talk back."

He had seen those things in use very often over the years and he had picked up the right term, because – apparently – humans loved to talk about those things as much as they liked to talk with them.

Castiel nodded slowly and looked over to Dean. "Emma will come looking for this."

Just as he was done talking, the cell-phone vibrated again.

Gabriel cocked his head curiously and then followed a sudden impulse and pecked around on the thing with his beak as he had seen humans do with their fingers.

"Leave it, Gabe!" Sam demanded, but it was too late, already.

"Hello? Hello?" a female voice came out of the phone.

The honey-colored duck eyed the object considering his options. Humans were talking to these things, so that was apparently what you were meant to do.

"I am not talking to you, because humans look damn stupid doing it and while I would surely look better, I'd still look stupid!" Gabriel told the thing seriously.

Sam shook his head at his partner's antics, but he didn't get to say anything before he, Gabriel and Jesse had to hide under a bush very quickly.

Apparently, Castiel had been right and the human wanted to have her phone back.


	29. Chapter 29

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, BloodyRosie, nonsolumsedetiam and Mello18 for last chapter's reviews! :-)**  
**

Thanks to Mello18 for pointing out that there was a formatting error... somehow half the chapter was suddenly in italic... I hope it's fixed now.

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**29**

Sam, Gabriel and Jesse were hiding under a bush close to the nest where Dean and Castiel still were. As long as they kept quiet, nobody should be able to spot them. The taller duck had his wing spread over Jesse and was hushing the kitten and shot his partner warning glances just to be on the safe side.

It was then that the owner of the farm came out of the house and quickly approached the nest of the two ducks. She picked up her phone and put it in her pocket before she turned her attention to Dean and Castiel.

"Did you talk to me on the phone?" she asked with a grin, "Quack, quack quack, quack!"

Castiel cocked his head and thought about telling her that she had been talking to another duck, but they weren't mean to give away that they had visitors, so he kept silent.

As soon as the woman talked to them in their own language Dean jumped to his feet, however.

"What did you just say about my mother?" the black drake quacked enraged and did his best to stare the woman down.

"Dean, you need to go easy on her," Castiel said, trying to pacify his mate, "It's only her second language!"

Dean snorted and spread his wings, walking closer to the human warningly. He'd give her a chance to either apologize or get lost, but her toes would have to pay if she didn't take her insult back or walk away soon!

The human didn't feel all too threatened, but she realized that she was disturbing her duckies, and so she left to go back into the house while she went on quacking and chuckling.

"Oh yeah?" Dean yelled after her, "_You_ breed with the mouth of a goat!"

"What does that even mean?" Sam asked confusedly.

"It is probably funnier in human," Castiel replied seriously.

In the meantime, Jesse had spotted a few more animals and made his way over to the hens who were chattering among themselves and did not notice the kitten and the honey-colored duck that came their way. Gabriel had decided to walk after Jesse just to make sure that he was not caught and domesticated by any humans that might be around. The honey-colored duck would go all Rambo on their asses, if they dared to try and take Jesse from them!

"Oh, look at that!" Ruby exclaimed, indicating the kitten with her beak.

"Do you think Crowley has ever been that little?" Meg asked curiously as she looked at the kitten.

"He looks sweet enough to eat!" Lilith stated, "We should keep him!"

Jesse cocked his head and looked over to his daddy. The hens seemed friendly to the kitten, but they were talking about strange things he wasn't sure he liked.

"No chance," Gabriel told the hens making sure that they understood that he was serious about this, "No chicks will take my son away from me!"

It was then that they heard someone chuckling. Jesse turned around to look at the newcomer and got face to face with Balthazar the rooster. The kitten yelped frightened and jumped behind his father, immediately.

"Sorry, buddy, we've had a run-in with your predecessor at his new home," the honey-colored duck explained to the rooster and then cuddled Jesse reassuringly.

"Why don't you go play over there?" Gabriel asked his still slightly scared son and pointed at a few bushes by a wall, "If you see any humans you come straight back here, though!"

Jesse nodded and went straight for the bushes. He wanted to get away from the rooster, even if his daddy seemed to think that this one was okay. Maybe he'd give the animal a chance later on. When he came back and his daddy was still uninjured, to be exact.

The bushes were mostly boring, but then the kitten saw something that immediately grabbed his attention and made him waggle his behind in preparation before he jumped on the offending object.

"What in the name of…?" Crowley hissed and turned around to slap the offender quickly only to see a kitten in front of him, "That's _my_ tail, little bugger."

Jesse stared at the big cat with wide eyes, his mouth opened slightly.

"Means, get off!" Crowley clarified and then pulled his tail away himself, "Damn kids these days."

A dog could be heard laughing close by, but Jesse was still busy staring at the bigger cat. He did not look like Zachariah or his mean sons all too much and this far he seemed nicer than they were, too.

"Did you come from the forest?" the kitten asked curiously after he had gotten over the first shock of encountering another cat.

"No, from a box," Crowley deadpanned, which was completely lost on the young cat, "So, are you going to stick around here, Shorty?"

Jesse shook his little head immediately, "No, we are just visiting uncle Dean!"

The older cat looked at him in consideration for a moment, but there really was only one Dean he knew of and the kitten clearly was serious about the uncle part.

"My, oh my," Crowley chuckled before he started to laugh louder, "Did you hear that, Bobby?"

Apparently, the dog had heard all too well, because he was laughing, as well.

Jesse did not really understand what was so funny, but he decided that those two still were nice and so he laughed along after a moment and after that Crowley even allowed him to play with his tail a little, as long as he promised not to lose a word about it.


	30. Chapter 30

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, nonsolumsedetiam, Mello18, BloodyRosie, Darla M and Tendencia for last chapter's reviews. :-) You guys are making a really crappy weekend better :-)**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**30**

"Daddy! Look!" Jesse meowed happily as he led his two new friends back to his father. They had been very eager to meet Gabriel once the kitten had told them to story of how kittens came from the forest when their duck-parents wanted to have a baby.

Crowley had even admitted that he probably only came from a box, because he didn't have duck-parents, but had been adopted by a human. Jesse had been very satisfied with that conversation.

"I can absolutely see the family-likeness," the older cat snarked, but the kitten ignored the tone he had used just like he had the entire time before, anyway.

"Crowley is a big cat," Jesse explained to his father, "And Bobby is a dog. They are living together like you and mommy are."

The kitten had seen the two of them argue about nothing and then make up with a few nice words and had jumped to the conclusion that had seemed all too obvious to him.

"What? No!" both animals yelled at once, shaking their heads fiercely.

Balthazar couldn't help clucking loudly when he heard how their little visitor viewed the two elderly grumblers. The clucking turned into a surprised yelp when Crowley threw himself at the rooster and chased him to the other side of the house, though.

"Listen kid, cats and dogs go together like… well, cats and dogs," Bobby explained patiently, "We're friends, 's all."

The old dog might have muttered something like 'idjit' under his breath, but since Gabriel hadn't heard that clearly and Jesse hadn't heard it at all, the honey-colored duck decided to let it slip that once.

The kitten nodded dutifully, but then looked at his daddy and asked dead serious, "When they get their kitten, will Crowley be the mommy or will Bobby be?"

Gabriel considered the question for much longer than the dog was comfortable with, but he was somewhat content with the answer the duck decided to give, in the end.

"Crowley, clearly," the honey-colored duck replied seriously and very definitely.

If there was a cat in the adoptive family then he'd have to be the mommy, since kittens were supposed to come from female cats. When there was no female cat, any cat would do. When there was no cat at all, the finder got to decide. Gabriel at least was content with the system he had come up with. Since he was basically the inventor of homosexual, interspecies adoption he got to set the rules as well, it was only fair!

"Can we call mommy over?" Jesse asked excitedly.

"You can try, but he's talking to uncle Dean," the honey-colored duck decided and watched his son run back to the nest where Sam, Castiel and Dean were still discussing something or other. Gabriel might have felt like he was missing something there, if he hadn't been completely sure that his partner would fill him in on everything later on. In turn, he would tell Sam everything about the cat and the dog that were denying to be partners. He thought about carefully and very cunningly asking Bobby if they – by any chance – were friends with benefits then, but the older dog had a question for him first.

"The kitten's mommy, who is a duck, is also a male duck?" the dog asked with a deep frown, "That's…"

"Very modern of us? Oh yes, I know," the honey-colored duck stated, bobbing his head as he was speaking. Hey, they might become trendsetters! Patchwork-family extreme! In a couple of years all the celebrities would want to do exactly the same! Gabriel already wondered if he would be able to sue them for stealing his idea.

Just when Bobby wanted to comment on that Crowley came back, one of Balthazar's feathers between his teeth and a very content grin – even for the standards of a cat – on his face. At the same time Dean's laughter rang over loud and clear from the nest the ducks were sitting in.

"I take it, Dean hadn't known that his brother was Jesse's mommy, yet," Bobby concluded very amused with the entire situation. He was insanely glad that their visitors were only visiting for the day or maybe a couple of days, but they were fun to have around for that time, anyway.

"I better go over there," the honey-colored duck decided when it looked like Sam was just one step from pecking his brother right between the eyes, or worse. Gabriel really thought he should get Jesse to look the other way while his mommy did things like that to members of the family, though.

Both Crowley and Bobby continued sitting close to the chicken-coop and looking over to the four ducks and the kitten in fascination. When Dean started to run circles around the nest yelling 'mommy, mommy' with his brother following hot on his trail and Jesse following his mommy with bouncing steps, they easily agreed that this was much better than TV.


	31. Chapter 31

**Author's note: **Thanks a lot to Maknatuna (who forget to log in), BloodyRosie, Tendencia, nonsolumsedetiam, Darla M and Mello18 for last chapter's reviews. :-)**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**31**

"I don't like this," Castiel muttered under his breath, looking around nervously, "I really don't like this!"

The others were pretty much ignoring him, however. He had said those exact words so often, they had lost all meaning.

"We shouldn't," Castiel went on quacking anxiously, "We really, really, really shouldn't!"

Dean put his wing over his mate's back soothingly. Sometimes – most of the time, actually – Cas was too apprehensive for his own good. It wasn't like they were committing a crime or anything!

"Hey, we will come back soon," the black duck told the nervous wreck of a duck walking next to him, "Emma will not even notice we're gone!"

After all, they had waited until the morning feeding time was over, so it would take the human longer to even begin missing them. Balthazar and his hens had volunteered to distract Emma, if she came looking for them sooner than anticipated for some reason.

Gabriel was still a little disappointed that nobody had liked his idea of knocking the human out with some sort of drug. Well, Dean had considered it, but then the party pooper had to ask how they were supposed to get the drugs. Hey, the honey-colored duck was the genius that was planning everything, the others might at least help with implementing the plans!

"But, what if we don't find our way back?" Castiel asked a little panicky, "Or if we get distracted and stay longer? What if they suddenly decide to move? Humans are like that, Dean, you know it!"

The honey-colored duck watched Cas freak out with some fascination. He would have suggested breathing into a paper bag, but they didn't have one around, unfortunately.

"I am sure your home is lovely and I'd really like to see it, but this is just not right!" the nervous duck told Sam after he started to feel a little bad for coming across as if he didn't want to see where the others were living. Like he really needed to feel bad about anything else on top of everything!

The taller duck nodded, "I get it, Cas, but we're nearly there, anyway."

Turning back now wouldn't really make that much of a difference. They had already agreed that Dean and Castiel would return to the farm before nightfall to make sure that they didn't get into trouble with their human.

It was really good that they were close to the pond and the nest already, because the smaller brown duck was nearly hyperventilating.

"Emma will be so disappointed," Castiel muttered, "She'll be worried and then she'll be disappointed and we'll have to live in the chicken house again! Balthazar is nice and everything, but I don't want to share his house. We have such a nice nest! It just wouldn't be good to lose that. Why are we doing this, Dean? Why?"

The drake's voice had gotten louder as he had went on talking. Everyone had stopped to look at him, too. Jesse was cocking his head at his second uncle – or possibly aunt, but his daddy had not been able to finish explaining, because they had started to argue about who of the two uncles would be the aunt – and thought that maybe they should get Becky to calm him down. The mouse did rather well with helping Chuck cool down. The kitten just had to chuckle when he imagined Chuck and Castiel freaking out together, though. Maybe they could have a freaking out competition, with a prize for the winner!

It was then that a squirrel had had it with the noise the duck was making and threw an acorn at Castiel's back.

"Nature is attacking me!" the duck quacked panicky and nearly passed out from all the stress he had been put through.

"Come on," Sam said in a quiet, encouraging tone, "You should take a bath in the pond to cool down."

Jesse nodded along with what his mommy had just said and licked over his uncle's beak soothingly a couple of times.

"I always feel better after a bath, uncle Cas," the kitten explained joyfully, "I can show you how well I can swim, too!"

Really, how could Castiel have said no to that? He struggled back to his feet and found that he was apparently done with getting all too freaked out for the moment being. Yes, they'd just stay a little while, take a good look at the very special nest Gabriel had gone on and on about and then they'd be back home before dinner!

"He's so domesticated," the honey-colored duck chuckled, watching his son leading Castiel the last little distance to the pond.

Sam flinched slightly, because he just knew that Dean wouldn't take that comment all too well.

"Hey!" the black duck yelled as if on command, "You better not mean that as an insult!"

"Oh, by no means, my friend," Gabriel replied seriously, "Letting the humans think that they managed to domesticate us is one way to gain their trust, so we can later take over the world from under their asses without them even noticing before it's too late."

If Dean had had any eyebrows to rise, he'd have raised them without a doubt.

"Mommy, the father of your child is a lunatic," the black duck told his brother with a definite nod.

"Oh, believe me, I know," Sam replied, but pecked his brother moderately hard for saying something like that about Gabriel, anyway.


	32. Chapter 32

**Author's note:** Thanks a lot to Maknatuna, BloodyRosie, Mello18, Tendencia and nonsolumsedetiam for last chapter's reviews. :-)

Okay... one more chapter then I'll end this story... yeah, I know, all your hearts are breaking ;-) ... but I've been thinking about something, so I'm just going to ask... is anyone interested in a hamsterAU? *lol***  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**32**

"You really are an excellent swimmer," Castiel praised his nephew when they finally went to join the other three in the nest. The cool water had helped the drake to clear his head and he was ready to see and truly appreciate the little family's nest now.

"Mommy showed me," Jesse told his uncle proudly, "And daddy is showing me how to jump in and make big waves!"

He was getting closer to catching fish, as well. He had already eaten one his daddy had caught for him once, but he preferred Ellen's milk. The goat had said that she really wanted him to keep visiting her, anyway.

They quickly noticed that the others hadn't made it into the nest yet, though. Apparently, they had gotten distracted by a mouse who was talking a mile a minute.

"Everything was okay, no badgers or foxes or anything alike, we made sure of it," the mouse was squeaking as she inched closer to Sam much to Dean's amusement.

"That's aunt Becky!" Jesse told Castiel with a definite nod.

"Oh, an aunt from your father's side?" the shorter brown duck asked a little confused. He had had some troubles following the logic of things ever since Gabriel had started to explain how their family worked.

"No, silly," the kitten giggled, "Aunt Becky is my aunt because she is uncle Chuck's wife."

A picture of a drake that somewhat looked like Gabriel and the mouse popped into Castiel's mind and he frowned deeply. Then again, if the honey-colored duck could adopt a kitten, who was to say that his brother couldn't be mated to a mouse? Assuming Gabriel's brother was somewhat like him, that didn't seem all too unlikely even.

"Uncle Chuck!" Jesse called and threw himself at the second mouse that had just emerged from the nest, as well. He gave him a few affectionate licks immediately and, to his credit, Chuck didn't even flinch. The kitten clearly was very good for helping the mouse to steel his nerves.

So, aunt Becky and uncle Chuck were aunt and uncle in name only. Castiel nodded to himself, satisfied with the way the story had unraveled. The smaller brown drake went to stand next to his mate and rubbed his neck against Dean's for a moment to show him that he was completely calm and collected again.

"Uncle Chuck, that's my uncle Castiel and uncle Dean!" the kitten told the mouse joyfully.

Chuck frowned slightly, because the names seemed somewhat familiar to him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on where he had heard them before. He wanted to ask Becky if she knew, but then noticed that his wife was rather busy with stroking over Sam's feathers while the drake looked completely uncomfortable once more.

"Seems you've got a fan, Sammy," Dean commented not even trying to sound innocent about it. His little brother really seemed to have a thing for the weirdos. They had a thing for him, anyway.

"Dean is Sam's brother, Becky," Gabriel stated and nudged the mouse none too gently, "The family-likeness is astounding!"

Okay, it wasn't nice to try and push Becky into Dean's direction, but the honey-colored duck was getting annoyed. It wasn't like the female mouse would have too many chances to fawn over Dean, but Gabriel could do with a break from having to be jealous of a mouse!

"I don't see it," Becky replied and gave Dean a quick once-over, but then turned back to Sam, disappointed.

The black duck quacked, affronted. Granted, he didn't want the mouse to hit on him, but getting dismissed like that was even worse.

"I'm sorry, must be the hormones," Chuck squeaked and went to pull his wife away from any of the ducks, "You know how pregnant women are!"

The honey-colored duck and his partner just stared at the couple disbelievingly.

"Congratulations," Castiel said sincerely.

"What does pregnant mean?" Jesse asked curiously.

"It means that Chuck is a lucky bastard," Gabriel grumbled, "And that his genes will be more widespread than genital herpes by the time he's done."

"What is-?" the kitten predictably started another question, but was interrupted and distracted when his mommy thought of something to ask.

"Why don't you show your uncles how you play ball?" Sam suggested cheerfully so he could easily get Jesse aboard with the idea.

The kitten nodded exaggeratedly and disappeared to get one of his balls.

"Thanks for looking after the nest while we were gone. Congratulations and we'll see you soon," the tallest duck quickly told the two mice as a not too subtle hint that they should get lost. He absolutely wasn't ready to discuss childbirth with Jesse while Dean and Castiel were watching, too!

"Where do you find these guys?" Dean asked his brother once the two mice were gone.

"Gabriel wanted to kill Chuck to teach Jesse how to eat meat. Instead, they became friends," Sam replied without batting an eye. As if that was the strangest thing that had happened in his life! It wasn't even the strangest thing that had happened in those past few months.

It was then that Jesse returned with his favorite ball and decided that he wanted to play ball with uncle Cas for a while. The smaller brown duck didn't seem to mind, anyway.

"Oh my God! Bow-legs and wing-man!" Chuck could be heard yelling from the forest, but none of the ducks paid any attention to him.


	33. Chapter 33

**Author's note:** So, this is it, the last chapter. I think I'll give the hamster story a try soon, so keep watching out for that, if you're interested ;-)

I want to thank everyone who read and reviewed this story. You guys are really amazing!**  
**

**Edit**: Now beta-read by the wonderful Ghastly Eternity!

* * *

**33**

Jesse was leading Castiel back to the family nest when they heard Dean and Gabriel argue. It seemed the two drakes loved doing that. As much as Cas liked Jesse and Sam, he was sort of glad that they didn't live around the corner. He didn't want to have to share Dean's attention with Gabriel all the time, even if the honey-colored duck basically only got negative attention.

"Trashcan," Dean quacked.

"Post modern!" Gabriel objected insistently.

"I don't know what that is, but I know what a trashcan is," the other drake argued.

Sam had retreated to a corner of the nest and was trying to be inconspicuous so he wouldn't be pulled into the argument.

"Not all of us like their nests all… classical and _boring_!" Gabriel quacked heatedly. He wasn't going to sit there and listen to his brother in-law calling his home a garbage can!

"Did you just call my nest boring?" Dean asked, narrowing his eyes.

"You called mine a trashcan!" the honey-colored duck shot back with some righteous indignation.

"Fine, let's ask someone objective and neutral!" Dean finished with a definite smirk in his voice, "Cas, what do you think?"

"I think that I can hardly count as objective and neutral since I am your mate, Dean," the black duck pointed out very seriously, "But I have to say, even if I prefer our nest, this one does have its own appeal."

The tallest of the four ducks thought that that had been a very good answer, but the other two didn't seem satisfied. As much as he loved his partner and his brother, Sam was glad that they usually had some distance between them.

"Why don't you show uncle Dean your stuff, Jesse?" the taller brown duck suggested before the two squabblers could get at it again.

The kitten cheered and ran over to the corner of the nest where all his things were kept.

"That's my bed," Jesse explained, getting into the farmer's wife's bra that was slowly getting too little for him. He kind of liked to sleep rolled into a tight ball, though.

"And that's my rubber ducky. Daddy stole it from the humans, just for me!" the kitten went on talking and eyed his toy critically for a moment, "Can I call it Dean, uncle Dean?"

The black duck did his best to ignore the chuckles coming from Gabriel – of course – and Sam – the traitor – and nodded proudly. After all, his nephew wanted to name a beloved toy after him. That just showed how awesome Dean was!

Luckily, they did not get back to discussing the décor of the family nest after that.

* * *

"Dean, it's getting late!" Castiel said urgently after he had stopped hugging Jesse.

"You better get going before Cas freaks out again," Sam commented innocently and gave his brother one last pat on the back with his wing.

"See you next week then, Sammy," Dean replied and wrapped his wing around his mate before they waddled back into the forest and toward their home.

They had decided that it would be easier and safer if Sam, Gabriel and Jesse just came to the farm for a visit every now and then in the future. Jesse had made friends there, anyway.

"Will we see uncle Dean and uncle Cas again very soon?" Jesse asked. He was a little sad that they couldn't all live together and see each other all the time, but he thought that their nest wasn't big enough for that.

"Yes, baby, in a week," the taller of his parents replied and took the kitten under his wing as they walked back to their own home.

"A week is long!" Jesse meowed a complaint.

"Nah, you still have to go fishing with daddy and we will visit Ellen and you wanted to see Chuck and Becky," Sam listed things the kitten was surely looking forward to and that would distract him from uncle Dean and uncle Cas for a while.

"Lucky bastard," Gabriel muttered under his breath at the mention of the male mouse. Becky was pregnant yet again! Then again, the female mouse might leave Sam alone a little more in the condition she was in. The honey-colored duck still was jealous.

"You'll see, the week will be over before you know it," the brown duck assured his son.

Jesse seemed to be content enough with that answer. He still dragged his uncle Dean rubber ducky over to them when they got settled for the night.

"Can I have an uncle Cas rubber ducky?" the kitten asked sleepily and cuddled up between his parents for warmth and comfort.

"I'm sure daddy will love to look for one," Sam replied, stroking Jesse's back with his wing a couple of times.

Gabriel nodded immediately. It was getting warmer by the day and soon more humans would come to go swimming in their pond. He was sure he could get a hold on something then. He'd start with the planning process immediately!

Jesse yawned and closed his eyes, but then he thought of something and mumbled, "Can I have a little brother?"

The brown duck was rather relieved that the kitten started to snore just seconds later and thus wouldn't expect an answer. He was a little concerned because of the look Gabriel was shooting his way, however.


End file.
